Let's Sperg Let's Play XCOM XPiratez Mod (ON SUMMER HIATUS) - Lethal amounts of autism ahead.

[ANF]

What compelled you to become a tranny janny?

 

[L50LasPak]

What compelled you to become a tranny janny?

Primarily I wanted to see if the people who modded A&H were just giant pussies and if it was really as bad as they say.
I was right.
I can quit whenever it gets to difficult anyway, but so far there hasn't been that much to do.

 

[White Devil]

Primarily I wanted to see if the people who modded A&H were just giant pussies and if it was really as bad as they say.
I was right.
I can quit whenever it gets to difficult anyway, but so far there hasn't been that much to do.

I like A&H but it does get repetitive.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

Primarily I wanted to see if the people who modded A&H were just giant pussies and if it was really as bad as they say.
I was right.
I can quit whenever it gets to difficult anyway, but so far there hasn't been that much to do.

I agree..with the exception of HK, Genocide Bot was King.

 

[Moths]

I don't want losers in my outfit. We can find better people to step on landmines for us.

May god have mercy on your soul for who knows what the depraved sepths of thunderdome autism will do to you

 

[L50LasPak]

11. Hidden Power, Part 2

Ah so that's where the Beast Den went. I get one started right away since its objectively better than the Burrow in every conceivable way. The sprite is obviously the Orc Farm from Warcraft 1.

Note that it also gives +2 to Refreshment bonus. Now I know that's just supposed to be because playing with animals is a therapy thing but its really setting this whole thing up for another white girls fuck dogs joke.

I still don't understand the point of this weapon. All of the bigger handguns are superior and you have to manufacture these things by cleaning up the rusty ones. Fuck that.

This warehouse raid goes pretty well, though a G.O. manages to land a good hit on Bezmenov, marking the first use of a proper medical kit in combat for use instead of just dumping booze on it. Super Sad Smile gets a few kills in, but she's leveling pretty slowly for some reason.

Some random research comes in. We've started on researching the Doom demons, but not much is gonna come from that any time soon, I'm just doing it to free up cell space. Force Circuitry is the latest in essential components we have researched, and we get a freebie because the game still thinks I'm not playing hardball enough.

The month ends. Missing that Gillman mission didn't seem like that big of a deal, and the nations of the world are still pleased.

God I hate these fucking missions, it always turns into wandering around desperately searching for the last zombie. I can't wait to get some damned chem protection.

Speaking of missions that suck, we're stuck killing rats again. I wouldn't mind skipping these missions, but Goblin Zaxx bounty tokens are the most difficult to earn without just directly bribing them, so we need all of the loot we can possibly recover. At least Super Sad Smile and Disc get further kills in.

You know, one thing the original XCOM and even Terror From The Deep does have over this mod (and many other megamods like it) is that in the originals, there are no missions that feel like they're beneath your attention. Even well into the late game of the original, hunting down a Scout class UFO still feels rewarding long past the point where there's any reason to bother with them. In this game there are an abundance of missions that feel like a waste of time, but its not really worth it to just skip them either. Maybe I'm just being a completionist though, I dunno.

Some more miscellaneous research. I wish I had more to comment on but I'm a complacent gamer and I tend to stick to mostly just the stuff that immediately benefits me. I do like the details of the Church Priests having various devices that allow them to perform what looks like miracles and shit though.

This here is why I wasn't worried about Durathread being limited earlier, as I have spent a fair amount of Mutant Alliance tokens to unlock a supply of it through them. It was expensive, but Mutant Alliance tokens are already extremely common right now, and we haven't even gotten into some of the juicier missions yet.

These VIP characters are apparently Patreon/donation rewards, with some exceptions. Which while I find kind of crass I do have to admit is a logical thing to reward donators with. The problem is they take up freebie research slots and don't provide any real benefit to the player, and given how bloated the research in this game already is it kind of drags it down further in my opinion.

Another Mutant Pogrom. Here's a snapshot of Witty to give you an idea of the new inventory layout with the extra crap. Also, I've placed one of the rocket launchers we picked up fighting the Humanists onboard since we might end up coming up against something tougher.

Looks like the enemy this time is a mixed crew of Bandits.

We frag a few of them to start with. A sloppy shot from Kane Lives ends up wounding Moths.

The enemy wearing a gas mask you see in the above screenshot is no ordinary bandit.

It's hard to tell but we also kill some kind of demonic looking dog-thing in the third screenshot here. If you play this mod you will learn to dread them.

These gas mask fuckers take a lot of hits to go down. They're not quite as tough as zombies, but they're in the same zipcode.

NerdShamer has wasted just about everything she's laid eyes on but we're still taking fire from something that can throw a lot of shots at us in one turn.

I figured when we saw those gas mask fuckers they were going to bring in some kind of heavy support. Its just an armored car, but I've tried to blow these things up with grenades before and they'll shrug off an entire bag of them.

Time to break out that RPG. We haven't actually researched it yet, and I'm really just banking on the mod being generous enough to let me use it before its researched. I don't even know if the DP warheads are effective against armor! Witty's only got a 21% chance to hit on Snapshot too.

Bullseye!

Apparently enemy vehicles also go up in a huge fireball upon death as well.

There's still a pretty fair amount of enemies left wandering around on the map, some of which I didn't get decent shots of them getting killed. All the fucking civilians died again but, I guess we're just used to that by now.

The loot is nothing super special, but you might notice a few differences this time.

Condemnations go flying everywhere, including a new one this time.

Some research finishes up right before I'm about to turn in.

Looks like we've got a full plate next time too.

Next time: A longer, neater update, one hopes.

 

[Mooger Meng]

Also, I've placed one of the rocket launchers we picked up fighting the Humanists onboard since we might end up coming up against something tougher.

I'm pretty sure it's some kind of gamer agreement that you never need to explain why you are bringing a rocket launcher anywhere; it's just an understood "just in case" thing because it's a fucking rocket launcher, why would we NOT bring it man.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

I'm pretty sure it's some kind of gamer agreement that you never need to explain why you are bringing a rocket launcher anywhere; it's just an understood "just in case" thing because it's a fucking rocket launcher, why would we NOT bring it man.

Well there is the argument that we are a bunch of Rowdy Drunk Autists and would waste the ammo when we see a rat and say "HEY IT WOULD BE COOL TO BLOW UP A RAT WITH A RPG"

 

[ANF]

Great job saving the kitties.

 

[Fictional Character]

I'm pretty sure it's some kind of gamer agreement that you never need to explain why you are bringing a rocket launcher anywhere; it's just an understood "just in case" thing because it's a fucking rocket launcher, why would we NOT bring it man.

Because XPiratez has something even better than a rocket launcher.

 

[L50LasPak]

Update 11 has been completed with a proper ending now. My next project is proofreading the thread, which I have elected to do every ten or so updates (even though we're technically up to 12ish now).

By the way, I've changed computers recently (yay), which means I've finally had to adapt to a larger resolution again. This is why I've been formatting the screenshots to be bigger in the more recent updates. I've elected not to go back and change the screenshot sizes in my old LPs, but I will probably change them in this one just for consistency.

The point of this is that I'd like to ask you guys what these posts look like on your screens. Are they all in neat little rows like on my screen? Or are they all over the place and disorganized because I'm the only one stubbornly sticking to a smaller screen resolution? I've been dreading to ask this since I'm afraid of finding out my LPs have secretly been unreadable this entire time, but there's no time like the present.

 

[Gender: Xenomorph]

Mod requires original game.

Lol good luck finding it.

 

[L50LasPak]

Mod requires original game.

Lol good luck finding it.

Time elapsed: 2 minutes, forty five seconds. Found it on the first entry, didn't even need to torrent it. There are about ten other pages containing the game. And if you really want to you can just buy it cheap on Steam or GoG. The game is not difficult to find at all.

 

[Mooger Meng]

Update 11 has been completed with a proper ending now. My next project is proofreading the thread, which I have elected to do every ten or so updates (even though we're technically up to 12ish now).

By the way, I've changed computers recently (yay), which means I've finally had to adapt to a larger resolution again. This is why I've been formatting the screenshots to be bigger in the more recent updates. I've elected not to go back and change the screenshot sizes in my old LPs, but I will probably change them in this one just for consistency.

The point of this is that I'd like to ask you guys what these posts look like on your screens. Are they all in neat little rows like on my screen? Or are they all over the place and disorganized because I'm the only one stubbornly sticking to a smaller screen resolution? I've been dreading to ask this since I'm afraid of finding out my LPs have secretly been unreadable this entire time, but there's no time like the present.

It looks like they still have three "sizes" even though they're all showing as 640x400 when opened separately. At about 1600px wide the thread can fit four of the small and two of the medium. I'm guessing some of the large ones are for emphasis, but sometimes they sit on the same line as a bunch of other screenshots and it looks a little crowded, but aside from having a bunch of them attached that you don't use it looks like everything is at least showing up in order.

 

[L50LasPak]

View attachment 2763500
View attachment 2763502
It looks like they still have three "sizes" even though they're all showing as 640x400 when opened separately. At about 1600px wide the thread can fit four of the small and two of the medium. I'm guessing some of the large ones are for emphasis, but sometimes they sit on the same line as a bunch of other screenshots and it looks a little crowded, but aside from having a bunch of them attached that you don't use it looks like everything is at least showing up in order.

Full disclosure I was previously using a set of three sizes: 232, 343 and 691 in size to try and keep it organized. Those made the most sense on the old, low screen resolution I had on my previous computer. I still play the game at 640x400, I'm realizing mostly because I just never thought to change it from the default install every time. On top of that the lower resolution keeps the screenshots from being too large. I think anyway.

Currently I've bumped up the sizes to 282, 435 and 845 (897 sometimes) since those make the most sense on my screen. The larger screenshots are indeed for emhpasis, though also sometimes its jsut a way of keeping things organized so I don't have incomplete rows or whatever. Which might be sort of pointless since the rows seem to automatically jump back up together if I don't place a line break there, which I should probably start doing now.

 

[Mooger Meng]

Full disclosure I was previously using a set of three sizes: 232, 343 and 691 in size to try and keep it organized. Those made the most sense on the old, low screen resolution I had on my previous computer. I still play the game at 640x400, I'm realizing mostly because I just never thought to change it from the default install every time. On top of that the lower resolution keeps the screenshots from being too large. I think anyway.

Currently I've bumped up the sizes to 282, 435 and 845 (897 sometimes) since those make the most sense on my screen. The larger screenshots are indeed for emhpasis, though also sometimes its jsut a way of keeping things organized so I don't have incomplete rows or whatever. Which might be sort of pointless since the rows seem to automatically jump back up together if I don't place a line break there, which I should probably start doing now.

3-4 of the small will make a comfortable row, depending on how wide each user's window is set at any given time. In that respect it doesn't seem too different from how your previous LPs were formatted, so I'll go out on a limb and say it's working well enough, and a few manual breaks wouldn't be a bad call to draw further emphasis and/or prevent some clutter now.
Also, if by "too large" you mean raw file size, your screencaps are orders of magnitude smaller than mine in that respect, though you tend to take shitloads more. Either way, it's not that much of a problem if you have a decent connection, DDoS Season withstanding.

 

[Moths]

Renders well for phoneposters

 

[L50LasPak]

12. Uncovered Power

(Yoko Shimomura, Parasite Eve - Arise Within You)

The hunting mission goes over about as well as you would expect.

As does the Ratman extermination. I make sure to get Disc and Super Sad Smile some kills in this battle, though there are unfortunately not as many left over for Bezmenov.

The crackhouse cleanup goes well at first. Well, its more like a crack barn than a house I guess (don't they usually make meth out here?). Until I have Figger Naggot accidentally destroy the staircase leading up to the second level of one of the buildings.

I'm positive the last enemy is up there, so I have Pocket Dragoon go up on the roof of the other building and start blasting holes in the wall. Realistically a gap that small should be able to be cleared with a simple jump, but I guess that's still beyond this game. (They did add running though I don't have it turned on, is jumping in there too?)

Turns out I'm wrong anyway and the last enemy is wandering around near the start.

The Lokk'Naar protection mission goes okay, although I nearly get Super Sad Smile killed when she takes a grenade on the chin.

The missions keep coming for some reason. This Warehouse mission is a slow crawl to get into fighting range like many of the others.

I finally get a the third hangar put together and a Blowfish to put in it.

This Temple raid goes over okay, though I get reckless and put Disc into the line of fire because I'm getting rather sick of babying her. Surprisingly, she holds out pretty well, managing to kill two enemies, shrug off a direct hit with no damage, and even stays on her feet after another hit wounds her. She even manages to patch herself up and deal the final blow to the Priest.

I consider Shakeup Ceremony to be pointless to have since it more or less erases the unique stats your Gals may start with and lowers their overall distinctness, something I really like about XCOM soldiers in general. However, I am convinced its related to some other tech down the line. And, finally, research completes on ?Embrace The Power?, meaning our destiny awaits us.

The first of our new Monster Hunt missions pops up, being Giant Spiders. Frankly I hate these missions because they have shitty loot, often you have civvies who need to be protected like here, and on top of that you're forced to use a specific tactic during them.

You see, small enemies and especially animals in XPiratez have a natural debuff to their visibility. Certain terrain types also add a debuff to visibility, and on top of that at night these same enemies get yet another visibility debuff. Which means more or less that your Gals won't be able to see these enemies on the ground unless they are looking directly at them (if they only see them out of the corner of their vision they're more likely to fail the roll) and if the enemy is already fairly close. Because these are animals that need to close to melee range to attack you, by the time your Gal spots an enemy, they're usually right on top of you. Added in to that is visibility debuffs contribute against Reaction rolls meaning even your more reliable Gals may not react to a Giant Spider closing in for the kill.

This ultimately translates to having to fan your troops out in a very slow and deliberate pattern, where they are observing directly at all times most of the cardinal and ordinal directions. If you start in the middle of the map, you might as well just take off and call it even. You also need to use the unit path previews to find little gaps in thick terrain that enemies can crawl through so you can keep them covered.

It's not really difficult, its just incredibly fucking annoying.

A bunch of research chooses now of all times to finish up. There's some junk in here, but also some important stuff like Hyperwaves and Optronic Parts.

A.
FUCKING.
LEAF.

Ah so that's where Slavery was hiding!

Further along the main path is the Menacing Hull, a leftover artifact from long ago that holds great power, and is the lock to our ascension as actual pirates instead of just another tacky post-apocalyptic gang. But if its the lock, where's the key?

God bughunts suck. How do I get out of this chickenshit outfit?

At this point I probably need to invest in a stronger set of weapons that can more easily kill Reaper Cavalry, since we seem to still be having so much trouble with them.

Some miscellaneous research completes, nothing super special.

I also bump our Brainer capacity up to 15.

Every day where we get to fuck with the Academy is a good day.

I take the time to remind the Gals of this and they agree. Fuck the Academy!

We get shield research started, along with unlocking another mission type of Bandits for us to brutally slaughter. Additionally I research the Zombies that have been taking up so much space in my Beast Den

Its happening. More on what this means for us in an upcoming post.

The majority of this mission is spent just waiting around for these idiots to walk out of their house since the map is otherwise empty. Would be interesting if the map had other civilians you could kill/capture in your rampage for revenge that could potentially bring your score down.

I have like a hundred screenshots of nothing happening on this mission because it was another positional slugfest the entire time.

This event, and I think the background image are taken from the old classic Infogrames Call of Cthulhu: The Shadow of the Comet point and click game. Which is of questionable quality to say the least and features more than one silly moment, but still has a tiny dedicated fanbase out there. Mostly just because of that awesome name.

The event may also be a reference to the extremely infuriating "Comet Sighted" event in Crusader Kings 1. Europa Universalis 3, and other Paradox games which presents the player with three options, all of which inevitably lower your empire's stability score no matter what you try to do. In this case though the event is of a positive nature, so maybe its just a coincidence.

Some more research completes before another big one drops.

Spoiler: Song Name

Depeche Mode - Master And Servant

I figure this is the research you've all been waiting for. Slavery is actually very useful utilitarian wise in this game, as slaves of every kind generate negative storage space and do not require regular housing in your barracks. Essentially this means that, as long as you keep generating slaves, your base can have potentially infinite storage space. In addition to the fact that some slaves can be recruited as combatants, though of dubious usefulness.

PLEASE read at least the second breakdown, I separated it from the first one specifically to make the info easier to to parse.

Spoiler: Slavery Breakdown

Slavery Breakdown

​

- Obviously, we can't enslave anything we haven't researched first.

- Almost all male enemy combatants will become regular Slaves. This includes just about every enemy Bandit type such as Tough Guys, Bandits, Highwaymen, Humanist Activists, Humanist soldiers, Guild Security, G.Os, Guild Technicians, Cult of Sirius Neophytes, male Civilians of nearly any kind, as well as the as of yet unseen MegaPol footsoldiers. I don't remember what happens to Traitor Reticulans, but they're better off executed for the token bounty if we take them alive.

- Younger male prisoners such as the Cult of Sirius Altar Boys are instead converted into Squires, which have their own complicated research chain I won't get into here.

- Mutant males such as the Bandit Behemoth (or whatever he's called), the Experiment Victim, and a few others instead become Slave Lashers, who free up more space than regular Slaves, but cannot be recruited as Slave Soldiers. I will not be enslaving Experiment Victims for the foreseeable future as their token value is worth more to me and the poor bastards have seen enough shit in their lives.

- Almost all female enemy combatants such a Savvy Girls, Tough Girls, Academy Medics, Researchers, Nurses, Guild Hostesses, etc, will become Slave Maids as female enemy combatants are too weak and useless to ever see combat, so the game doesn't allow you to recruit them in any way (based?). Slave Maids will free up slightly more space than regular Slaves though. This includes Traitor Smoothies too but they're better off being executed for the token bounty.

- Certain female enemies such as Hoes and Cult of Sirius Shrine Maidens will instead be enslaved into Courtesans who will generate income for us. However, they also take up prison space, which is inefficient and in my opinion not worth the hassle of keeping them, so 99% of the time I'm still just going to ventilate them on the battlefield when I see one.

- Female Ubers such as Ninja Gals and Bandit Ubers can be enslaved into Gladiatrixes. I'm not sure if you can use a Gladiatrix on the battlefield, but I won't be doing this much because I'd much rather research other Ubers to unlock all of the diary entries rather than use them up by enslaving them. We can also do this to Castaway Gals, but enslaving our own is a terrible idea when they can be much more gainfully recruited instead.

- Certain enemies such as the Sharp Guy and Sharp Girl can be enslaved into an as of yet locked category called Taskmasters, who generate significantly more space than regular Slaves and Slave Maids.

- There is additionally a more skilled Slave type called Slave Specialists that Technicians and Engineers can become. Eventually we'll gain the ability to train up our regular slaves to become Specialists as well.

- We currently lack the ability to enslave anyone in even a minor command position such as Cult of Sirius Priests, Guild Team Leaders, or Bandit Bosses (when we finally encounter one). Government Agents are currently included in this category I believe.

- Finally, psionic female enemies can become Slave Witches, who are of very dubious quality.

Spoiler: Slave Soldiers Breakdown

Slave Soldiers Breakdown for Beauty Parlor

- Regular Slaves can be recruited into Slave Soldiers. Slave Soldiers come in every color of the rainbow much like regular XCOM recruits and have their own constellation of custom portraits in this mod. Additionally, they have their own special armor sets, many of which are lame, but quite a few of which are pretty awesome. Have faith that I won't dress you up as a faggot and/or in capeshit.

- Slave Soldiers are effectively identical to regular XCOM recruits as far as I can tell. Additionally they seem to have no special weaknesses to anything, even charm. The second rank any Slave Soldier can earn is Free Soldier, so the BDSM theme is really more of a suggestion than a paradigm. If anyone was bothered by that.

- In order to add some audience participation, I'm going to only enslave combatants in controlled batches, and only batches of the same type of prisoner, this way I can (manually) track what kind of unit a Slave Soldier has originated from, since the game doesn't do this. Its more work for me, and it doesn't really have any effect on anything, but it gives you guys some extra distinctiveness for your characters.

- I'll be recruiting Slave Soldiers in batches of 10. If you would rather be a Slave Soldier than a Gal, you will be moved to the top of the recruitment list (currently occupied only by @Fictional Character) for Slave Soldiers. Anyone dead will also become a Slave Soldier, though only after I run out of fresh names.

Spoiler: Current Name Bank for reference, Waifu names not included for clarity

L50LasPak
NerdShamer
Sanshain (Forever Sunrise)
Niggermancer
ChucklesTheJester
Moths
Dr. Ricearoni
Figger Naggot
Citizen Calamity (Dead)
Pocket Dragoon
A Callow Youth
Honka Honka Burning Love
The Valeyard
Sea Urchin
SalmonForSale
Peasant
Judge Dredd
Kane Lives
Disc
Super Sad Smile
Bezmenov
Overcast
wtfneedsignup
Zvantastika
Agran
Arm_Of_The_Lord
Marisa #
JongleJingle
Damnit Mandrake
Grotesque Bushes
Wintersun
ShoFuKan
jet Fuel Johnny
Agaraithum1066
Neo-Holstein
Smaug’s Smokey Hole
Jewthulhu
Massa’s Little Buckie
Hans
TerribleIdeasTM
White Devil
McMitch4kf
Mary the Goldsmith
Polyboros2
Gimmick Account
Mooger Meng
not william stenchever
Radical Centrist
Llama King
SailingTheSaltySeas
Plant Aqua Mammal
Fougaro
Zaryiu2
Hard Toothbrush

Waiting On Slave soldiers:
Fictional Character

With that out of the way.

Super Sad Smile got a bit less experience on this Watchtower mission than I would have preferred.

We start cleaning up some extra research. The Tommy Gun seems pointless now but it'll open up an important avenue of research later.

I've finally manufactured and researched the Bounty Hunter Brass Badge, which unlocks the next tier of Bounty Hunter missions for the next month.

The Academy should learn to stop putting out public distress calls.

SalmonForSale eats her own grenade due to my ineptitude. She's wounded, but still on her feet. Basic Grenades will go off in your troops hands if you let them in this mod, which is just blatant videogame bullshit since in real life a grenade will not detonate unless the spoon/lever (that hook thingy on the end) flies out of it, after you've pulled the pin. And we know for a fact our troops don't drop the spoon immediately upon arming the grenade, because there's an option to disarm the grenade (IE, put the pin back in), which can only be done if the spoon is still present! Bullshit, I say!

Anyway, the mission goes over smoothly aside from that minor hiccup.

I produce our first three slaves to free up some prison space.

This is probably going to be the first weapon we equip the Christine with, once the Brainers figure out how to put it together.

Some other miscellaneous research completes. Here we get our first hint that the Gals are interested in the atomic weapons of old, and also some cursory information about human-colonized Mars.

We research those hard to kill gas mask mutants we encountered at the last Pogrom. It turns out they're a disgusting subhuman species that's a cross between the Ghouls from Fallout and the Vidiian civilization from Star Trek: Voyager. Harvesting the organs of others to replenish their diseased, rotting bodies and living in harsh chemical contaminated areas, they may very well be the nastiest and most vile enemy we have yet encountered.

The month ends. The nations of the world are overall pleased with our progress, but they've seen nothing yet.

Stay tuned for the next interlude and vote, coming soon!

 

[White Devil]

This format is a LOT cleaner.

 

[Mooger Meng]

This Temple raid goes over okay, though I get reckless and put Disc into the line of fire because I'm getting rather sick of babying her. Surprisingly, she holds out pretty well, managing to kill two enemies, shrug off a direct hit with no damage, and even stay on her feet after another hit wounds her. She even manages to patch herself up and deal the final blow to the Priest.

I'll be damned, your walking payday is turning out to be an okay fighter. Probably thanks to more than a bit of pluck and luck, but still.

Also, go ahead and put me in the slave list. It's not like robots are people, right?