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[Crazy Horse]

 I haven't had a go at Redux yet. It looks like it doesn't have nearly as much clutter as Final Mod but keeps the essential stuff like Lukes Extra UFOs. I'll definitely give it a try.

[Salmeuk]

Piratez is pretty awesome, but sort of like DF you have to go in expecting to lose.

Saying that, I still want to attempt surviving for more than a few months, so maybe someons can answer a couple of basic questions:

1: should I be skipping the first terror mission (or whatever Piratez calls it)? Almost three times now I've wiped, and I can't believe you're supposed to survive with noobish troops and low tech weapons.

2: what sort of gun should most of my girls be wielding? Equivalent to the sniper rifle from the original, I want to know what a good "standard" is for when you're just starting out.

I'm trying to play without reading much at all. My first game devolved after I failed to bring enough ammo to a terror mission (though I think I was dead anyways). My reaction (perhaps a little hasty) was to buy every single soldier a SMG and plenty of magazines. Little did I know SMG's are inneffective anywhere but CQC. I had something like forty missed shots before I knew something was up. The bullets that did land were absolutely ineffective, and once I lost the transport it was gg.

I really like the nicknames. The original had name-flavor accurate to the premise: a supra-national special ops squad that draws recruits from every country. Piratez, a game about mutant femi-gangs, has names like "Cold Nipple" and "Broad Shank."

[ChairmanPoo]

The biggest problem with piratez is that it's tough as shit bricks without reading anything 

What I've figured so far is that most of the starting ranged weapons are nigh-useless and far weaker than your enemies. That bows and the like use the throwing skill instead of firing skill. And that whereas in theory rushing the enemy and stab stab is a good starting tactic... well, for what I've found... remember that bit about enemies having better armor and weapons than you? your recruits are far less expendable than the ones in xcom, but they tend to die a lot easier.

I also have problems quite often trying to chase enemy ships. Even the small ones are really hard to catch and fast, and... lethal.

[Rince Wind]

Smoke grenades. Smoke grenades everywhere until you choke. If they can't see you, their superior range doesn't help them. Use them parrots as scouts. And to deliver smoke, or even activated grenades. They take a while to train, but are dirt cheap and you can put 2 in the bonaventura.

As for weapons: black powder bombs (remember to research bombs and flitlocks) and molotows will solve most problems handily. The blunderbuss, hand cannon and boarding gun are decent when you can produce ammo, but heavy. The assault cannon with exploding balls is a great piece of artillery at the beginning, just put a strong gal with it on the roof and send love in every direction.
As for the guns you can buy it really depends on you playstyle. For my melee gals I like to use some pistol I can produce ammo for asap. Manstopper ammo comes quickly. And I like the standard assault rifle. It can double as a stopgap sniper rifle, and when you need to leave your roof you can really hurt someone up close with the auto fire. Hunting rifles are good early snipers as well. Bows take a lot of energy to shoot, but it can be quite connvenient that they shoot in an arc.
I usually try to get by without spending too much money on guns and ammo, so I try to use what I capture.
Anything explosive is really good at the beginning, and fire ignores most enemy armors and does moral damage as well.

For the terror missions, I would go there, see who we are up against, and if it is humanists or some other weak faction maye try to fight. Rememer to bring some Panzerfausts to deal with tanks and stuff. Pick up enemy weapons, especially if they already started emptying their clips, as you wouldn't get those anyway.
If it is some more powerful faction, get your parrot back inside and head home.

Build a new baracks so you can hire more hands/runts/brainers. Then more storage (slaves help here as well). Produce and sell alcohol to help your finances. When you have an apple research it and the next topic, you can make a lot of money selling apple based liqour. Smoke ops gear lets you ignore your own smoke cover, especially nice for snipers that stay on the roof. Even basic tac vests can mean the difference between life and death, and they are a needed component for later armor, if that hasn't changed, so it is not a waste to produce them. Give the weak gals runt armor, so they can carry at least something.

I just started playing again, my last campaign was a couple months back and a lot has changed. From the research tree to the factions and new guns. But I am having fun.

[sambojin]

Cattleprods are great for early captures. You get them by researching Contacts:Smugglers, then buying them from the black market. They're cheap and hit for plenty of stun damage, but they're slow as hell. Handles and fisticuffs are your other option for stuns, but prods work for weak, inaccurate gals, and do enough damage that a bit of armour isn't a huge problem.

+1 to flamethrowers. They're everything they say they're not. They look expensive, but they're cheap to run. They're accurate, as even a 6% chance to-hit still hits a lot. They pack stacks of damage with 8 shots hitting under armour with incendiary, even at only 20 damage. They're about exactly the same range as anything automatic in the early game, because not much hits beyond 9 tiles anyway. They're good. And very satisfying.

Spiked maces are good if you don't mind a bit of lethal mixed with a slight chance of a capture. You get them by researching Primitive Weapons. There's better mêlée weapons, but maces aren't bad, and they're cheap to make (4 scrap metal and a bit of time). Think of it as "bonus captures", rather than any actual chance to plan for them.

+1mil to smoke grenades. They're amazing as always.

Try out Gym Suits and Bikinis. Some people swear by having stacks of armour and beer. I personally swear by having heaps of TUs and Stamina to run wherever I want. Especially early on, when the armour you can get isn't that much better than your skin. Honestly, you probably won't miss the inventory space once you get used to it, but you'll love always having a heap of energy for running and mêlée captures. They essentially make you money, because you'll go for captures more often, instead of just shooting people. Good armour is good, but bikinis really do save you messing around as much on the inventory screen. Get them by researching Our Abilities, Gym Suits, Mutant Porn and Bikinis. Until you've got better armour, you may as well have an assault team of 4 quick gals (at least). Try it out and see if it fits your playstyle.

The Linux SMG is surprisingly good. It's about as accurate as any other SMG/automatic (ie: not very), but at least it hits pretty hard with its 38 damage. Not quite a boarding gun, but not as heavy/slow either. Definitely an upgrade to most of the vendor trash you can buy at the start. You get it by researching Guns and Ammunition Manufacturing, and Linux SMG.

+1 to Assault Cannons with Expl.Cannonballs. +3 actually. They don't seem great until you have 3-4 of them. Then they seem awesome. Not too hard to make, cheap ammunition, and fairly accurate at "reasonable range". I don't actually use them for sniping, I run them up with my gals and create a small firebase under smoke cover. Makes them more accurate because they're closer, and gives you the option to run inside on bigger ufos pretty quickly. They're not perfect, but they are very multifunctional. Cheap is good, but you can go grenade launchers or mortars if you want. I like the bit of extra range over GLs, but with way more mobility than Mortars, that the Assault Cannons bring. They're what make mutant pogroms (Terror Missions) seem possible, and even just moderately difficult, though long as hell to slog through. Even a fairly weak gal in runt duds can bring one and a fair bit of ammo.


Selling off between 10-30 of your scrap pile isn't bad at the start, for a hefty cash boost. You don't need it early, you won't have time to manufacture it down anyway (or much to use the scrap/chems/wire on), but $50-150k is very useful to get going. Keep a fair bit, but don't be too concerned if you sell quite a lot of it. By the time you really need it, you can just buy the bits and pieces if you need them for making stuff (excepting gun almanacs, etc).

[sambojin]

To actually answer your questions:

1: Yep. Skip the first pogrom. If you've got plenty of smoke and prods, you might want to try and pull a quick capture for research purposes. Or just blast anything near the Bonny, grab some loot, and go. Don't worry too much about it until you get some good weapons (Assault Cannons or GLs make a huge difference, and a fair few flamers mixed with some longer ranged stuff).

2: Flamers, prods, AC w/exploding, bows, handles/fisticuffs, maces, beer, bandages, boarding guns, hunting rifles and plenty of bombs/smoke/grenades. Pre-prime (right click in loadout screen) a fair few smoke grenades to carry with you, it's just a cost of doing business, and very handy to have. Much like Xcom, hitting hard or accurately isn't difficult early on, but there's only a few things that do it well. Smoke grenades make cover easy, especially since you can pre-prime them in OXC, saving a stack of TUs when you really need them. Sniper rifles/gauss weapons/lasers/anything tasty are better, but everything listed is very early game or can be bought straight away. There's no real Laser Rifle analog in XPiratez early in the research tree, and there's plenty of ways of playing that can be successful. Some swear by lots of bows, I just use them as an occasional tool-weapon. Not many people use bikinis and flamers/prods as far as I know, but I'm very successful with them. See how you like playing, and get good at that style. The Linux SMG is probably the closest thing you'll get to a Laser Rifle analog, but it requires ammo, isn't as accurate due to distance dropoff, and I wouldn't recommend kitting out all your gals with one. Unless you want to.

3?: Put some x-grog on the bonny. A strong gal with a prod/mace/fisticuffs/flamer in one hand and a barrel in the other is damn handy. Easier than messing around with bandages and beer constantly imo. I try and take as much inventory woes out of the game as possible, and 1-2 gals kitted like this does that well. Armour them however you want, but use them exactly like you use a normal mêlée trooper. The healing/stamina is just a bonus, and a pair of them can do some pretty insane things for your squad. Without ever touching the inventory screen.

4?: Parrots are God's gift to the gals. Always bring one. It'll die eventually, but it'll do amazing things that you can't until it does. Have a couple of spares in base. High TU flying is ace. Your best spotter for ages, can fly above your own smoke for spotting, and can grenade/smoke stuff through roof holes when required. Vision is key, and Parrots give you that in boatloads.

Get used to getting in close, even if you're shooting at something. You might have a snipers' nest, or an archers' range, or a fire support team, but in close is where you do the actual work. Hit <ALT> to see what way they're facing, and hit them from behind. <CTRL> Running saves you from a lot of reaction fire. Captures are your goal, kills are just to make sure they happen, without your people dying while you do them.

[MCreeper]

NECROOOO!

So this willl be X-Piratez thread. And i have a question - how do i cheat a fucking menacing hull back in? It's not the "your playtrough is screwed forever if you sell it, but no one will tell you that" that i expected when i did read about it being "key plot item" in article linked a bit before (or "guide" at the same site), but i really wanted that magical girl outfit for most hideous magical girls ever. Giving unique moderately important item above 0 selling price and telling the player that he shouldn't sell it after he already sold it is a dick move, if you ask me. Relatively small one, but dick move none the less.Surprisingly didn't found that by short googling, only someone asking how to cheat money and everyone else screaming "Y U PLAYING THIS MOD!!!!11!!1!" at him. I'm 2.5 years in. Restarting is really not an option.

[Rolan7]

Hm, I almost made a new thread since a lot has changed since 2016 advise-wise.  Maybe this is fine though.

The .sav files are cleartext and relatively easy to edit, though some of the string names are amusingly held-over from old versions.  Academy nurses are called STR_SECTOID_MEDIC, for example.

The line you need is

Code: [Select]

      STR_MENACING_HULL: 1in the item list of a base.  The list seems to be in alphabetical order for me, which I doubt matters.  But just in case, I'd do a search for "STR_MOLOTOV" and insert the line above it.  You'll be able to tell which base you're looking at by the number of molotovs.

[Robsoie]

I noticed there's a new X-Piratez version from the end of march, J13a that features several new stuff :
https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php?topic=3626.0

But from what i have read there's a report of someone crashing when he's getting an underwater mission, though i don't see anyone else reporting it (never delved yet in undersea mission myself so can't confirm), could be playing an old save in the new release or a genuine new bug, who knows.

[MCreeper]

Moved save from 12 to 13, no troubles whatsoever in both.

Hm, I almost made a new thread since a lot has changed since 2016 advise-wise.  Maybe this is fine though.

The .sav files are cleartext and relatively easy to edit, though some of the string names are amusingly held-over from old versions.  Academy nurses are called STR_SECTOID_MEDIC, for example.

The line you need is

Code: [Select]

      STR_MENACING_HULL: 1in the item list of a base.  The list seems to be in alphabetical order for me, which I doubt matters.  But just in case, I'd do a search for "STR_MOLOTOV" and insert the line above it.  You'll be able to tell which base you're looking at by the number of molotovs.

Will try this.

Also, gosh, this thing changed A LOT from 2015, judging from boltgun's letsplay. Big universal ship from the beginning? Ability to purchase more ships and tactical vests? In new ones, you must go "cavewoman to cosmos" for quite a while before you even see any of this! Cyberdisk terror mission in the first month WTH

Oh, and this, he-he-he. Got it in third year terror mission, because i didn't win a single zombie mission yet, sometimes for very stupid reasons.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[sluissa]

Losing the menacing hull makes things more difficult, but as far as I can tell doesn't ruin the playthrough.

That said, it's an important lesson in piratez. If the game gives you something with no apparent use, that lack of use is likely temporary.

Th research tree is less a tree and more a spiderweb that's been set up across a doorway and had a face tear through it a few times. Research everything. You never know what will lead where.

[Greenbane]

Bit of a shameless plug, but I really loved OpenXcom and how moddable it is.

So I made a few small mods, the most complex implementing Terran plasma weapons.

[Rolan7]

Losing the menacing hull makes things more difficult, but as far as I can tell doesn't ruin the playthrough.

That said, it's an important lesson in piratez. If the game gives you something with no apparent use, that lack of use is likely temporary.

Th research tree is less a tree and more a spiderweb that's been set up across a doorway and had a face tear through it a few times. Research everything. You never know what will lead where.

Protip, right-clicking items in the Fence menu shows what they're used to construct.  Uses you haven't researched are even shown as asterisks (with an option to show them anyway).
But yeah, most things have a use.  Even wheat technically, though it's safe to sell it.

I think you're right about selling the menacing hull, assuming it's already been researched (which is probably the case, it's a very early research).  Selling the codex before unlocking its use is disastrous though, locking away a whole lot of content.

Dioxine was pondering on the discord recently about potentially making it a viable path, though certainly still a hard mode.  In case you wanted to reject your mysterious benefactor.

Also jeez I just got a second Mage Villa just a few months after the first, most of my gals are in sickbay.  And armored cars aren't allowed (the gal just arrives naked, one of those things which helps me justify saving before every mission ).  I wish I had a plate mail gal like last time, she tanked two rounds of minigun fire which stripped her 80 front armor to about 40.  I imagine her tossing aside the remnants of the plasteel shield, spitting out a bullet, and closing the distance with her axe 

[Rince Wind]

You can already get to the end without the codex, I think. But the ship only has very limited space, and it might kill some of the gals on board.

[a1s]

Does anyone know how I can read the BootyPedia entries that have too much text for their screen? Also, hammer fluff implies there is a way to use melee weapons on the enviroment, can you? if so, how?