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[Nirur Torir]

You can look through the in-game tech viewer, accessible with Q from the geoscape or by middle-clicking the tech. As of a version or two ago, the male soldier path didn't have anything special, other than a small infamy boost, but did cut off the superslave techs and I think some of the slave armors.


A bit late, but handles are my melee weapon of choice, since they fit so nicely in the quickdraw slot, making them easy to use with a rifle. Less skilled gals get stun batons.


My current run has a bit of a bad start, the spartans were the main faction for the first few months, then everything quieted down and I'm getting bits of spartans, church, and humanists. The guild has only appeared in two warehouse wars maps, so for proper armor all I have is tactical vests, a single tactical armor, and a few pieces of upgraded durathread armor.

I went with the gold codex this time. So far, the starting space suits have been nice for the one underwater mission that spawned, but it was a UFO and didn't come with aqua plastics. I have too much to research and still need to get to the Shadowbat, but that looks fun. Gold looks like an interesting thematic codex later, abandoning the most combat potential in exchange for shinies and support.

[Robsoie]

Surprisingly the sirius cult big golden ship wasn't difficult (medium size only though) , good because 3 of them landed so i could get some nice score and loot from them,good as i needed the money to get my secondary base (made it in northern america) started.

Then some time later i large ship was flying around and landed.
I sent my top Gals to its location.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Didn't expected them that early and considering the tech level i had access that would have been suicide to attack even a single of those guys (and a large ship is filled with them) the less i can say is that the airbus took off on the same turn it landed

[ConscriptFive]

...how are you having money issues?

The latest update, Casino Royale, made money almost too easy to get.  In your first month or two, you can research "Gambling" which creates a "Spin the wheel" option under manufacturing where 1000 credit blue chips are converted to random denomination casino coupons that you then sell at the fence.  There's a bit of an RNG swing, but you end up with 5-10 times more than you put in.

Blue chips are waaay easy to get if you're taking prisoners.  Once you're done researching a prisoner type, NEVER sell a prisoner, always rob them under manufacturing as most will cough up lots of blue chips.  Same thing for purses and money bags.  NEVER SELL THEM.  Once you've researched them, there's an {E]xtraction option under manufacturing where you convert them into piles of various chips.  Rat man villages, sirius temples, and civilian ships are all reliable sources of both purses and money bags.

Also did you research Chateau de Morte liquor?  Converting apples to Chateau liquor is a nice steady income option when your Runts don't have anything else to manufacture.

Once you have multiple bases, Sectoweed Plantations are also a steady source of income, since your radar bases tend to be otherwise empty anyways.

[Robsoie]

is gambling that good ?

Because i'm still only in a few months in and money isn't coming that easily as i prefer to interrogate prisonner for tech+score instead of selling them, buying all the new shiny stuff is expensive.

[Rolan7]

Researching people does pay off end-of-month by granting score, of course.  I'm not sure how much it boosts the monthly "bonus" (not to mention ongoing pay increase), but people have indicated that it's comparable to the money you get from ransoming them.

Thanks for the reminder about gambling, though.  I've got a mint up, but forging red chips out of blue chips is barely more profitable than just making X-grog.  So I wouldn't expect it to be super profitable, but I'll take a look...  Keep in mind that the blue chips from robbery are only half the ransom value, though a lot of enemies give unusual materials that can make it worthwhile.

Back in J8 I ran some math and determined that sectoweed plantations only about broke even, or maybe were close to the base Plantation's small profit.  I'm only running 4 bases and I really don't have space, though I did grow and store a bunch of sectoweed for its various midgame uses.

I actually sketched up a lot of production-chain profitability math, but I don't trust all the steps.  I really ought to make a spreadsheet...
Hellerium: 15.87 $/hr
X-Grog: 18.33 $/hr
Chateau de la mort: 55 $/hr
Chemicals: 42.14 $/hr

Multi-part things, I think using 42.14 $/hr as the cost of labor:
Medical Supplies: 18.22 $/hr
Durathread mesh: -18.85 if you buy the plasteel.  If you simply "don't sell" plasteel for $4500 each, it becomes 31.25 profit.  Chemicals are still better and easier.
Lingerie:  Not profitable unless you have spare durathread and porn to use up.

Counterfeit blue chips: I haven't done the math, but the listed profit is about 10% less than chateau.  That doesn't include the cost of purple chips but still, not bad.  Thankfully I've been saving the blue chips instead of auto-selling them, so I have plenty to gamble with~

Again though these numbers are likely inaccurate, it really calls for a spreadsheet.  Right after I look into gambling...

[MCreeper]

Hello, munchkins!

[Rolan7]

Hehe guilty as charged!  And wow, I can confirm that gambling is very good.  I'm going to focus only on pure profit so as not to spoil all the random goodies you might get, of which there are a *lot*.  I saved and cleared out a base entirely except for runts and blue chips, so I could easily "sell all" to measure how much value I gained.  Here's what I got:

100 spins (100 runt hours): $702,030! 7020 $/hr profit, merely *selling* the coupons.
But what if we did more?
1000 spins: $4,361,560.  4361 $/hr profit, a bit lower but 1000 samples should be pretty reliable.  Wow. 
I'm also down only about 750 blue chips, net, so apparently there's a 25% chance of getting one back.  Keep the wheel spinning!

tldr; Gambling is indeed extremely lucrative, like 100X more than making chemicals or grog (as long as you have the blue chips).  I'm sure it would be even better if I could turn these coupons in for wondrous prizes, but I haven't found a sample of "secure freight" so I'm blocked from Activities: Commercial and thus Casino.  dangit.

[Robsoie]

Nice testing, going to get my Gals into gambling then

[Rince Wind]

For "secure freight" you need a heavy freighter and research its flight plan, I think. They don't land so you need to shoot it down. It will only show up after certain research topics regarding the Guild have been finished.

Also someone already made a spreadsheat, though I don't know how well maintained it is:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1CkPqVsGXP72ncwIMQjk8gW2Qnc3sVNJVW0ZXhAWcKoc/edit#gid=1134076783

[a1s]

Is there a way to see how much TU a path will take in Extended openXCom (X-Piratez.) that was a really useful feature I miss from Xenonauts.

[Rolan7]

Indeed!  In the options, in the BATTLESCAPE tab, it's the "Path Preview" toggles.  I use both arrows and time units.  It takes an extra click to confirm, but I got used to that very quickly.  Sidenote, you can hold ctrl to run (burns stamina, but you can really see how it changes the TU usage!)

[a1s]

Thanks.
Also, Huh. I assumed your units were already running everywhere seeing as how they are very fit soldiers who lose they entire stamina after 2-3 full moves.

[Robsoie]

What are those ?



I have seen them so many times in all my x-piratez run, i never saw any of those things landing and even if you try to shoot them down the aircar will never hit them even if it uses several hundred of rounds, and they never shoot back.

Sometime they're also part of those bizarre "there's dozen of small ufo everywhere around the base"

[GiglameshDespair]

Wandering Bands of rat men or w/e.

There's a few interrogations that give their topic as a freebie. Basically expeditions searching for your base.

I had pretty good success when shooting at them with a plasma charger on an aircar with a pilot with good firing. They all were destroyed utterly on a hit.

I have a suspicion the base hit of a 30mm cannon etc is low enough the modifier for such a small target makes them literally impossible to hit.

[MCreeper]

Or sonic oscillator, or 50 mm cannon, or 250 mm rockets, or 2-3 first gals being savescummed out of any death and becoming super duper pilots or whatever else i did use on them. Never had trouble with destroying one.