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[Iduno]

Do I pay upkeep for people and vehicles the month I buy them, or the month they arrive in? I want to maximize usage of my people, but I don't want to pay for an entire extra month to get a few extra days worth of work.

I would assume when they come, but you can check by buying someone and checking the Logs screen before and after.

Yep, just did that. You start paying upkeep when you buy/hire, so do that on the first of the month. I assume that's part of a fix for Open X-com to prevent the end of the month ship everyone around the world to avoid upkeep cheat. I'd agree it makes more sense the other way, but they probably can't fix part of a 30-year-old game the easy way.

[Mathel]

How are bugeyes for base defense? You would have to train them first, but it seems like there would be a lot of good places for them to hide while getting close to the enemy.

Untested. I never actually had a base defence with bugeyes. I would assume they would be good, as you could spread them in the hellerium sludge or the tunnels above and mind-attack people on the main floor.

Edit to prevent double posting:
Right now, I am mainly worried about Sectopods. With their shielding and armor, they are very difficult to destroy. Striking them with a tank lasercannon when their shields are down usually takes them out, but for that I have to bring their shields down first. Also, they have a pretty high chance to 1-shot any of my gals.

[sambojin]

I've read on the main Xpiratez forums that decent shotguns are apparently THE way to go against shields if you don't have much else.

There's no armour value on shields, so those pellets really add up in damage against the shield, because there's no big negative modifier to go through. Just flat dps (dpTU?). As in, 100+ damage if most hit in some cases. Then take it out with your heavy weapons once the shield is down, just like you're doing.

Yes, you have to get moderately close. But if 1-2 shotgun blasts can drop the shield, it might be worth the risk.

I'm not sure if resistances are counted, but apparently the large amount of hits still works out pretty well if you don't have a decent, very autofire'y weapon laying around for the job (something like a minigun, or even some SMGs or heavy machineguns should strip them pretty well too. Even an O'Hartys Gun would work, aside from its absimal accuracy. Won't do much vs the actual Sectopod, but it sounds like you've got the tools at hand once the shield is down anyway). Often a lot better than a high damage single shot weapon would in many cases (or these weapons are a lot more accessible, and are also sometimes lower TU cost, reducing reaction fire chances). Make sure it's completely gone before you fire the big guns though, I'm not sure if there's any damage overflow from shield to unit (as in, with 1 shield point left, it might happily block a 150 damage attack). Many shields do regen a bit each turn, so you'll want to hit it with something light again to restrip it next turn before hitting it with the big guns.

So, light and lots of bullets, then as heavy as mutantly possible, is the order of the day for Sectopods.

[Rince Wind]

If you fight sectopods you should have some EMP bombs laying around. If you can use the Minilauncher, try them. Those often drop regular tanks with a single hit and should work on sectopods as well.

[sambojin]

Just to make sure I didn't imagine it, here's where I read about shotguns vs shields. Should work for any rapid fire weapon though:

https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,5345.msg111826.html#msg111826

[Mathel]

I suppose I could pack some heavy shotguns loaded with nuclear shells. Not only will it ruin shields, it will also be able to kill the stargods themselves, so the shotgunners will not have to rely on other units finishing them off.

[sambojin]

Do nuclear shells have many projectiles, or are they actually one big slug?

Stuff like Assault Shotguns, Street Sweepers, Blunderbusses or Arena Flak Cannons do the job on shields. 150+ potential damage per shot, and auto-fire upping this significantly. It's nice and cheap ammo-wise too.

Although, once you've got plenty of fun toys, Sectopods shouldn't be that hard. I just tend to post lower-end advice, so it's applicable to more people depending on what stage of the game they're up to. I've only just started a new run, so things have probably changed a bit since I last played.

[notquitethere]

Having tank problems again. I've taken out one of them with my only landmine... but there's a second one roving around. Is it possible to eventually destroy them with HE, Flak, & Stick Grenades, or am I wasting my time and resources?

[Rince Wind]

Armored Car? Maybe. Tank? You are wasting your ressources. Those things have good resists against explosions (concussion), grenades are not an anti armor weapon.

[amjh]

Ghoul disease symptoms:

• Decay.
• Organ failure.
• Inability to use weapons that don't match thematically, leading to crippling overspecialization.

[Mathel]

Do nuclear shells have many projectiles, or are they actually one big slug?

Stuff like Assault Shotguns, Street Sweepers, Blunderbusses or Arena Flak Cannons do the job on shields. 150+ potential damage per shot, and auto-fire upping this significantly. It's nice and cheap ammo-wise too.

Although, once you've got plenty of fun toys, Sectopods shouldn't be that hard. I just tend to post lower-end advice, so it's applicable to more people depending on what stage of the game they're up to. I've only just started a new run, so things have probably changed a bit since I last played.

Yes, N-Shells shoot as many pellets, as whatever shotgun it is normal shells. My favorite gal is using a shotgun shield and a plasma sword, so I have plenty of Heavy Shotgun N-Shells to supply her.

With tanks, if you do not have tanks of your own, you may want miniguns (shred the armor), gothic rayguns (shred armor). HEAT RPG rockets should also work, especialy if explosions behave like in vanilla and being on ground zero always hits bottom armor. If not, you need to shoot it in the back or at least the sides with it.

[sambojin]

Hitting "within 1 tile" hits bottom armour. I honestly don't know if that means hitting the direct facing with a direct hit gets that side's armour value against it though. You'd think by that definition, it would hit bottom armour, but it might not. It seems counterintuitive that a slight miss, that does explode, is better than a direct hit against armour.

But lots of things in XCOM and X-Piratez are. It might be intended, so that the explosion doesn't "plink" off the front armour, because the explosion does actually spread beneath the target.
Still, with a 10% drop-off in damage per tile away from the kaboom point, maybe it's both balanced and strategic. There are a LOT of tactics and emergent gameplay available in X-Piratez, just little ways of doing things differently, that make all the difference, that keeps it interesting and fun.

CTRL-click is your friend to aim anywhere (not just *at* enemies), and so is height of the shooter compared to their target, to damn well make sure you're shooting down, so that it explodes on the terrain regardless of misses

[Robsoie]

I knew i wasn't going senile and that indeed it wasn't normal that night vision wasn't triggering automatically at night
https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,7148.0.html

So apparently it's a change in OXCE that remove the option but in the same time make this always enabled, but additionally what triggers the problem is that the auto nvg conditions have changed, and x-piratez always ship with the latest OXCE of the moment.

I'll add only that the option was removed, but it is now ENABLED for everybody.
The "problem" is not that the option was removed, but that the trigger conditions were made stronger.

If the night vision is not triggering for you then there must be either someone with strong personal light; or the craft itself must emit strong light.

Not any, it must be "personalLight: 6" or more. 5 and less count as no personal light.

After a quick search into files thanks to notepad++ while there's a ton of 

Code: [Select]

personalLight: 5
there are also many things with a personalLight value from 12 to 30
in Piratez.rul located in ...\Dioxine_XPiratez\user\mods\Piratez\Ruleset
in Piratez_Armors.rul there also personalLight  they're all at 0 or 5

After replacing all those personalLight values by personalLight: 5 i gave a test and ... it didn't worked, the nvg wasn't triggering automatically.

I was puzzled at first, but i was also wondering if there was some cumulative calculation there (as i was wondering if buildings/ships/gals internal+external/armor lights were counted as one or two separate for that condition) , so i replaced all the personalLight: 5 to personalLight: 0 and ... it worked.

Wish it was possible to edit the actual condition (the must be personalLight: 5 or less) instead of changing all the personalLight values as i don't know exactly what is cumulative, but at least it now works, one less tedium.

edit : talked too quickly, it works on a new save but testing on my current long played save it is still night.
I don't understand why then considering there's 0 mention of personalLight in any of the save files.

[notquitethere]

I first played on an earlier version where night scenes were just a bit darker, but on my current (and hopefully only) play through, I dread night missions as the night vision gives everything an ugly colourful glow. (Originally green, but I changed it in the settings to Orange which isn't much better.)

[Robsoie]

alternative solution to benefit from the nice auto NVG is to download the OXCE executable (the 32 or 64 bits) from the 3/4/19 :
https://lxnt.wtf/oxem/#/Extended

as it was the executable that was coming with J13.

So far after playing a few missions with the 3/4/19 win64 executable replacing the one from J14a , it seems to works correctly and the auto NVG is triggering without a problem.
I wonder why the dev decided to change this, as it was working perfectly and people that prefered to have complete night and press a key instead of auto nvg could still do that already.