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[Mathel]

Believe it or not, the Heavy Shotgun can make a comeback in the late game. When you research the N-Shells, you get a weapon capable of killing shields and rending armor. Good against Sectopodes. In this mod, not even a Blaster Launcher is capable of killing a Sectopode in one shot.

My current loadout features mainly Battle Rifles with Plastasteel ammo, CAWS/Trenchguns, and Longbows. A few gals also have Custom Snipin' Guns. Every squad also comes with 2 humans and 2 bugeyes, with a Super-Self-Charger each.
I am currently building Boom Guns to become my new shotgun of choice. And I should probably just buy some M-Lasers. The peasants will be able to carry less, but will do more damage.

[sambojin]

You mean I have to use weapons other than the heavy shotgun and handle??? This may very well be the worst day of my life.

LOL!
Oh, I've been there!

Not really, just bring along some assault cannons with normal cannonballs, acid cannonballs, and exploding cannonballs, a few flasks of acid, or maybe some longbows with acid arrows, and carry on! Screw the tech tree, enough arcing acid/Chem shots with high pre-armour damage will peasantize anything. Then you blast them or whomp them, good and proper!

(Yes, throwing an assault cannon from gal to gal is totes legit as a strategy. Or just dropping it, and the next gal picks it up, to see how well their balls work. It's just like any other big, long, thick toy that makes people squee with joy for them...)

((Not truly sure, but hitting close-enough with an acid cannonball should hit under armour, and hit four times against 2x2 targets. Yeah, there are resists, but a "basic mathsy minimum" of -24 armour is hard to complain about with cannonballs o' acid against large targets. A 6 blast radius makes anything pretty "accurate" when they're arcing shots. It's not like you don't have 80 concussive damage 50%-150% normal cannonballs as well for finishing shots, and even they have 0.15 pre-armour damage, so quite a bit. You'll have to research some-of-the tech, and get an awesome set of bases going, but it's rarely weapon-tech that is holding you back on the tactical battle map, maybe just your preferred playstyle until you get new toys that you like using to play like that. But, there are upgrades to everything "piratey", even if you don't need too many if you're a brainy capt'n))

(((So yes, deal with the miscreants near your ship with basic weapons, but damn well have a Cannon barrage ready, for anything harder than that. Hell, bring along some Pyro cannonballs, just for night missions. You'd be amazed how well they light up an area so you can't be outdone on that either. Fire vision stacks a bit, square by square. And xpiratez gals do not f* around when it comes to night-vision. I'm actually surprised every xpiratez Ship doesn't have an assault cannon as a basic thing/ built-in weapon for landing properly, with a bit of ammo (two balls of each, standard/ pyro/ explosive/ acid perhaps? They're low enough on the tech tree that each craft "just comes with them"), just to make this apparent. But one strong gal with an assault cannon's distributed pack-weight for ammo (and low-end tech), alongside distributed TUs for proper heavy weapons, etc, means you do have the tools to beat tactical missions pretty early-on available to you. You're just messing around with other stuff, that obviously won't work well)))

[Dostoevsky]

Assault cannon is pretty underrated and it's often worth having one in a squad (or something similar - most of the various launchers can do great pinch-hitting support). That said, the big ninja turrets have 50% corrosive resist and 65% concussive resist, making big boom weapons much less effective than one would hope (even at armor-stripping).

[sambojin]

Meh, 12-24 less armour with Chem cannonballs is still is less armour on a proper hit. How much armour do these things have? Because a shot or four, even on a slight miss or two, usually brings stuff into "slightly more normal weapon damage range".

Not saying you could 1-turn it, just saying that there are tools available pretty early on, that 2-3turning it is pretty viable. And arcing, boomy ones at that. Line-of-fire might just be up to RNGeebus.

(I haven't been able to find the actual armour values yet, and can't be bothered raw running for them. So, how big? Are they essentially an immobile 14mm armoured car? Because, acid Chem damage with anti-armour will sort that. 60 armour sucks, but not within two shots or so)

[Dostoevsky]

70 on the front/sides/back, 35 underside. But they also have a pretty bulky amount of HP on top of that.

Really the main issue is that they require more than a few hits to take down, but they're good at reaction fire and spit out enough dakka to likely wipe out whatever dares shoot at it with a clear line of sight. So grenades and arcing weapons (and several of them) are needed for each one.

[sambojin]

70 on the front/sides/back, 35 underside. But they also have a pretty bulky amount of HP on top of that.

Really the main issue is that they require more than a few hits to take down, but they're good at reaction fire and spit out enough dakka to likely wipe out whatever dares shoot at it with a clear line of sight. So grenades and arcing weapons (and several of them) are needed for each one.

👍 Sorta what I was saying, so yep. We agree.
(That happens on internet forums sometimes)


((But seriously, bring along some cannonballs 'o acid. And an Assault Cannon or three to fire them with, just pass them around/ or drop them to the gals, or have a "party organiser" monitoring one. It's not like they deal no damage. They deal heaps of, and can change ammo. But within 1-6 shots, lots of things with high armour aren't problems any more))

[Dostoevsky]

I find forced mortar team gameplay in x-com mechanics to not really be my cup of tea, I guess, which is my main issue with the turrets specifically.

[sambojin]

Meh, the assault cannon "only" takes 65% TUs, so there is some mobility in between shots. Even more on the production line "give it to 2-3 gals a turn" thing. And production of "very cheap ammunition". 5-6 radius kabooms is amazing, with a bit of movement left to do so. Bigger than that, with more TU's to do so? Meh, you can actually run this as a main gun. It doesn't just need a mortar position, it's just that you can run a forward one of them if you want to.

Actual Mortar? Nup, can't move, 94%TU fire, god-alone-knows how long to reload, and the explosion is too-big. You'll murderize way more than you want to. Grenade Launcher? Great and quick, very useful, and many versions of, but doesn't get awesome XPiratez-tech.

You'll just have to deal with bravery being a shooting stat for now (instead of getting vaguely molested by Hydra Cannons, as an actual "weapon upgrade"), but you got 40-69% out of that weapon with low-end tech anyway. You literally have "do a thingy, really well, with all-the-shells", but you can't do it really accurately. But you do essentially have plasma shells that blat armour, so there's that... You got them really early too. And training bravery isn't exactly a bad thing to do anyway).

There's also the major fact that heavy damage arcing weapons, even whilst kneeling, don't work all that well inside. It's a very useful thing on gameplay balance. But it is worthwhile blowing out the roof, from time to time.


(I'd find constant forced side-grades and busy-work from my basic hand cannon, musket, boarding gun, or cutlass or handle, to be just as annoying. I mean, I don't mind a bit of work, early in the tech tree, but after that it's just gravy, or up to me. It shouldn't be "necessary". And it's not. I can train my gals, quite well. So assault cannons aren't necessary either. But a lot of people forget they have "super-heavy bows" pretty early-on, with "siege-weapon level ammo" for them, able to be manufactured right now. Then say "however can I deal with this thingy, that is bothering me? It has all the stats!". Well, check what you've got in storage, I guess)

((But yeah, replace "Assault Cannon" with "Heavy Seige Bow" in your Mind, and "cannonball" with "arrow" likewise, and I think most people will realise how awesome it is to have a mobile heavy seige bow somewhere in their line-up))

[sambojin]

Actually thinking of that "craft weapons" thing. Imagine if the hull you came down with did have an xpiratez'y assault cannon? With ammunition for it. Or an old-skool, laser squad one, with explosive ammunition but worse aim? Or a codex ship that had a heavy flamer to spout? Or some point-defense lasers, with really good reactions, but low range. Or a multi-grenade launcher firing vision flares, or even smoke? Or an "inspiration" launcher for your troops, or a healy one, or damn near anything on in-built craft "weapons".

I'd actually love to see xpiratez go this way, so there's definitely reasons that you're using that craft for all these missions.

[Mathel]

With crafts with built-in weapons, this should be coded in.

With other craft weapons, it is not just up to Dioxine, but also to Meridian. The craft weapons on mission should fit the craft weapons actually used on the craft.

For example, 14mm Cannon, 25mm Cannon, and Assault Cannon are already battlefield weapons coded in X-Piratez. All of these also have at least one craft gun equivalent. But if one of these was loaded on a craft, the correct one should spawn on the mission given to a turret. The turret would then be allied to you, or under your control.

That being said, I would love it if I went somewhere with a Kraken with 3 Basilisk Cannons and got heavy fire support from them.

[Dostoevsky]

[Assault cannon stuff]

Don't think we're disagreeing on the weapon itself, hah. I also like the assault cannon! I just don't like getting threats that require you to stop everything and adopt WW1 tactics for a little while. It's not a bad idea, I think, I just personally really don't like it in this game.

Actually thinking of that "craft weapons" thing. Imagine if the hull you came down with did have an xpiratez'y assault cannon? With ammunition for it. Or an old-skool, laser squad one, with explosive ammunition but worse aim? Or a codex ship that had a heavy flamer to spout? Or some point-defense lasers, with really good reactions, but low range. Or a multi-grenade launcher firing vision flares, or even smoke? Or an "inspiration" launcher for your troops, or a healy one, or damn near anything on in-built craft "weapons".

I'd actually love to see xpiratez go this way, so there's definitely reasons that you're using that craft for all these missions.

Another thing that annoys me about ninjas, hah. Even if you disable their craft they often still have active turrets, whereas the few ship turret options you get are generally cruddy and vulnerable. I'm assuming it's a deliberate choice on the dev's part.

[Egan_BW]

It seems odd for anti-air guns to be so threatening. I mean, they're not even made for hitting things on the ground. Should be slow glass cannons at most and set dressing at least. I don't know what they look like in game but the operator in one of those things isn't usually very protected, so why would they have massive armor?

[Dostoevsky]

The ninja turrets are literally the same as the ones you can build in your bases (takes the same armor resistance profile, so editing one edits the other) - think of them as those turrets on star wars star destroyers, visually.

And 14mm, while a pretty meagre ship-to-ship round, is quite deadly at the personal level. (You can use them too, although not at such a high rate of fire and high accuracy)

[Rolan7]

Honestly this Revolution content seems like it's for me.  I was always on about playing a heavily peasant game - Even going male touch out of, well, morality (Male touch means that men are equal, which I believe strongly, also we [redacted])

Technically this Rev content leaves males in the dust.  It isn't, though.  If I want a recruit who can heft a mortar straight out of boot camp, that's a male. 
It's just that, under a Revolution, that would mean recruiting a male "slave" But is that so strange?  Perhaps:  Males in this world would not willingly join such a revolutionary order.

Male soldiers (I refuse to call them by their default name) still have a purpose as mortar-teams and using their unique tactical (tacticool) armors.  I vaguely remember using a few as such in the past. 

[Dostoevsky]

Tried Peasant Revolution in this new campaign, and... not as much my cup of tea. In the past I went male touch, but these peasants are just so much more raw on recruitment and you don't get useful armor quite as early to help out. Still quite early in my game though (May 2601, and I don't really play going optimal anything).

Mechanically the reason males aren't part of the revolution is that it's a 'third choice' to what was the male/female question (gals v. guys). Lore-wise... the peasant men have previously been described as uninterested, and what males you do get even in the male route are mercenaries, not peasant stock. Mercs probably wouldn't be interested in revolution. I think you can still give them the booze-powered revolutionary rebirth, at least?

(I've been tempted to muck into the raws and change every instance of the male soldier acronym because it bothers me too.)