I had an exceptionally bad month (-4000+) and no countries stopped payments though several reduced them. Prior to that month I had a good month and the Iron Tribes stopped payments. I don't think I missed a mission there. I haven't fielded interceptors beyond a single FAUST in the main Technocracy starter base. Is it the result of a spacecraft intercept I missed? I had no radar coverage there yet, Theban Hive is the closest and it only has an Outpost radar; I'm not sure if the FAUST can shoot down larger craft of the sort that does such a spacecraft mission; it mounts two light craft weapons (I was using 50mm in both though I may not have had the ammunition for larger spaceships remaining by that point) and shoots down Small megapol ships, bandit zeppelins, and necropirates easily, but I'm not so sure about larger faction ships. I'll probably have to do the sparkling hull researches soon for a more solid interceptor. I think I took Shadow Bat last time (grey codex) and used that for most of that game but I might change that up this time. I'm using the flying submarine BLOWFISH that holds 8 hands as a transport, and sometimes the FAUST that holds 6 if the extremely slow BLOWFISH can't go. IIRC the Shadowbat carries more hands than either and can go underwater while being a functional interceptor, making the BLOWFISH and FAUST both obsolete for the main base after using the HULL.
I have two visible enemy bases, I think there are locations with two more, and I also shot down a civilian transport or two in the bad month in the assumption that didn't harm score but I may have been wrong since the score was so negative. Otherwise it was a usual month where I did all the missions.
To avert some of this disaster I went back to an earlier save I make a few days before the month ends, and save scummed my way through a visible guild base with scale armor and panzerfausts for the tanks. I do not recommend panzerfausts in base assaults, the arc is tough indoors. I had to run a gal up to within explosion radius for one of the tanks after popping out of cover to toss nades or shoot at infantry near it, and the panzerfaust did not one shot the tank like I had hoped; The gal had enough TU to turn a corner and the tank did not fire the next turn. The others were destroyed by battle ax and mace wielding gals and several savescums. I found the tanks will usually use all their TU on movement the next turn without firing if gals are in melee with it, but will fire if they drive into a place they can see a gal who wasn't in melee with it. I'm not sure how reliable that is. I also caught two boomosaurs, one with a mace gal and the other with grenade spam that didn't kill it or even make it bleed, the guildmaster, and every type of prisoner present in the base that I hadn't researched yet (probably going to alarm the guild if I'm reading the researches correctly). The guildmaster was brought down easily with a skilled catgirl using a poisoned dagger. Hooray for save scumming, that base had TPW written all over it in scale armor and using spiked maces and battleaxes to get through the armor on tanks if I didn't sink to that level. I brought along flasks o' acid as my best thrown option to strip their armor, but they didn't seem terribly effective in comparison to hitting it with armor damaging melee weapons wielded by supersize gals.
Winning this brought the score back to around -2k. The other base was attempted but the entrance was covered by a hover tank that exploded some of the gals hidden there the first turn no matter where I placed them, so I saved that for a later attempt after no countries stopped payments if I went to the end month screen.
I didn't rush into researches I knew would unlock better equipment this game past smithing and such required for workshop facilities so I'm using a limited supply of dropped weapons that I can't purchase or make yet, and crappy weapons I can obtain ammo for easily in easy missions (spikey smg for it's stun in melee, bayonetted rifle for it's lethal melee, and in particular scoped rifle for it's aimed accuracy since I can't do scoped carbine yet, though I have one of those and find it superior to the scoped rifle). I probably will have to step that up; I was doing prisoner researches to free up limited space rather than ransom them. 4 bases fully built; I stopped adding more to put large barracks and an onsen in the secondary bases to turn the sectoweed from the usual plantation placeholders I put in a new base into El Commandante cigars. Finally making enough from those with 3x Extractpr facilities (installed cheaply prior to Workshop research for Hellerium selling income while the main base used the apples in it's Still) to fill out the rest of the base slots, but I need to obtain more interceptors for the existing bases first I think; as well as ammo for the craft weapons I have. I'm down to around 20 rounds for the 50mm on the FAUST and will have to swap one out for a lighter gun until the second 50mm runs out and is also replaced. I'm limited to making or purchasing airballs now (which I can't put on the faust I think) so I have Contacts: Krazy Hannah researching (when I don't have prisoners using all the Brainers) slowly so I can purchase craft ammo and also the last remaining 2x20mm or whatnot craft weapon required to build a flak tower kit needed to build a large prison for courtesans in the base in Antarctica, Assarctica. After that I won't have to make decisions about which prisoners to keep and which to ransom after each and every mission.
Is it a bug that when you receive a catgirl event that gives you a catgirl tourist that you can recruit catgirls without limit from the one prisoner? Usually the game "converts" the prisoner into a member of the crew, meaning the prisoner is lost but a new hand arrives a few days later. I like the catgirls, they have great TU potential without being limited by low strength like Lok'Naar and Gnomes, but I actually had access to recruiting them in bulk before Lok'Naars which seems like it may be a bug prior to researching the Recruit: Catgirl line of researches (I didn't take Gals are Superior, so the catgirls would be a nice upgrade from Slave Soldiers and Peasants I think). There is some fluff (Peregrine Cult or something along those lines) that suggests it may not be a bug, but I only recruited two catgirls like that as it doesn't work the same as other recruitment and stopped, but if it's intended I'll go ahead and recruit them for pilots for the other bases instead of Lok'Naar, who I'll use for underground missions with Gnomes (of which I have several) in the main base. I had a pair of wild gnomes show up as well as a Mad Gnome who was quickly appeased, and uh oops accidently converted the Gnome that an event gives you for repeated research into a crew member with them, so I'll have to capture one for repeateable researching in the later missions that have them.
EDIT: The Eurosyndicate keeps complaining about having a base in the Theban area, and demands I dismantle it or plop one down in their territory. Will they stop payments eventually, or will the -150 or whatnot infamy penalty just keep being applied? I could put a base in the Eurosyndicate, but I was setting them so the biggest radar range coverage didn't overlap, and it would if I put one there. Perhaps I could build one with plantations that I can tear up if needed, but that's extra up-front dollaros for something temporary I won't get a ton of use from other than the -base upkeep from plantations I assume still generate money if it's over the upkeep cost.
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Topic: So OpenX-Com... (Read 241339 times)