See, Global Warming is beneficial. That 200 infamy will be over $60k at the end of the month, suckers!
Not sure why this was requested (and don't want to know, best guess is it leads to nun outfits?) but it was quick and we've got some more brainers now, so here we go. Maybe I should start posting these instead of the in mission screenshots. Alternately, I could post the stat block version, which we also get when we research a captive or a monster carcass. Let me know if anyone has a preference!
And we got this as a freebie research for the interrogation. Nice, since it spared us from losing the damned thing, and it is one of the important early game researches, oddly enough.
Behold the power of SIX brainers. Yeah I feel like even 20 wouldn't be enough right now. The fact that they're so expensive really makes cash tight in the early game, which I like. Makes decisions on how much to spend on crew, vessels, buildings runts and researchers feel really impactful.
We've got about 5 more pages of stuff that's not even on the immediate todo list as well, although some of it probably should be. We don't actually need stun batons any time soon for example, while that builder's hall contact is pretty important.
Our second of the 4 big early tech branches is finished. Ironically, we didn't rush this for access to weapons.
But rather because it leads to this. It has double exclamation points for a reason. This is, without a doubt, the most important tech in the game. If you don't pick this up you're severely handicapped, as it unlocks a pile of easy, incredibly lucrative missions and special rewards.
This is going to be a recurring pentalty each month, or possibly more often than that? I think it's just random. Anyways, there's probably a tech to mitigate this at some point down the line, but we're not anywhere close to it yet.
We also researched Craft Weapons, which lets us get the statblocks for a few of the primitive ones, including our glorious light machine gun. It's, uh, real fucking bad. I'm pretty sure we can craft primitive weapons more effective than this.
Shipping like this is very tempting to fly at and try my luck. Our trucks could even catch something this slow. However, ships don't necessarily move at their top speed. This thing could very well have a top speed of 800, meaning even if I sent our much faster airbus to just get a visual on the damned thing, it might get caught and shot down. Since our truck would probably run out of ammo before killing anything this big, and we lack the means to kill the 30+ crew it probably has, I let it and all the other traffic go by unharassed for the moment. Which is a shame, because I'm pretty sure at least some of it is primitive ground couriers that are basically free loot, which will stop appearing before long.
Our third of the big 4 techs. My personal favourite, it unlocks a lot of primitive tech, including some excellent early weapons and armour options.
I kind of wish more of you were clueless newbies that could offer suggestions that weren't just outright optimal gameplay. The game has so many ways to go about things. My personal bent is to pursue animal skinning, as it'll lead to some nice body armour and cold weather gear. But we want pretty much all of this pretty soon.
Another critical research- or so I thought. It didn't actually unlock what I thought it would. I think we need fire first, to get alchemy and then proper booze production.
(Though I forgot to actually buy some until just before I made the post. Next time! )
I took a shot of this tech because it illustrates the freedom and branching paths the game offers. I personally think the bounties are the best option for early craft weaponry (It includes a gunship that is a cut above the thrashed helicopter referenced here) but these all seem pretty valid, aside from perhaps the 'Krazy Hannah' contact, which seems like it arrives way too late in the game to be a viable option. Maybe it was easier in a previous build, or I'm doing something wrong. Whatever, don't care. We'll be aiming for either repairing the bird or getting a gunship from jack, depending on our luck with missions.
So those money purses we keep looting can be opened in manufacturing to split it into individual coins. I was kind of stumped for a while though, because doing this with the money purse results in a lower final sale value. I've since figured out why this is a good idea though.
We've had nice luck for random events so far. Not amazing, as there are some really spectacular ones we could get, but we haven't had the terrible ones either. It's entirely possible to just suffer over 1000 infamy losses to random events like this in a single money, costs hundreds of thousands of dollars in income and putting us in danger of outright losing. The fact we've had reasonable random events has meant I can focus more on loot than infamy, which helps a fair bit.
I'm not sure, but I suspect the game is suggesting here that we send an expedition of some sort to Thebes at some point to unlock some special voodoo related missions? I've never actually tried that and don't want to be spoiled on it, but the game feels pretty mysterious when I see stuff like this. I assume once I do figure out how it works getting voodoo up and running much earlier will be a real option.
Here's a list of prizes we can get immediately from doing bounties. There are 3 different factions we can run bounty missions for, and the prizes unlock the option of purchasing/researching these things, rather than simply being one time rewards. Of particular interest is the pirahna, suppressed pistol, and mutant martial arts. However, the Piranha is in conflict with another potential use of jack's tokens, so unless the game blesses us with a lot of his missions, we probably won't see it for a while. Acquiring these also reveals newer, more expensive rewards.
We've had a very quite month so far, basically racking up a lot of tech without any missions to go on. That's fine for now though, we're not under much pressure at the moment, and have more research options than we can shake our considerable stockpile of sticks at.
This bad boy is what can let us win those ground races. However, it also requires a hangar. I'm reluctant to replace either our trucks or the airbus at the moment, and we can't build a third hangar just yet.
Another key piece of technology that is easily overlooked. Without one of these built in our base, we won't be able to research some very important things.
At long last, a mission! And one that should reward us with a new gal! A fellow escapee at that, which means much better starting stats. Having enough able bodied crew on hand to take these missions is an important consideration, as if we start losing members and stay too wounded to take these, we can fall into a death spiral.
The map is quite tiny, and the presence of this little bunker implies our foes are probably of the two legged variety, rather than a horde of scorpions. Which is lucky, because critters tend to have a huge advantage in night missions.
Ah, this is probably our first significant threat we've encountered. Well, aside from the priest, but those don't show up in groups. Aside from having some actual guns fairly often and some light body armour, these guys have a special property: Spotter. If they get shot, they immediately learn the position of the attacker, and can return fire even if it's beyond their vision radius. It's guys like these that will prevent us from simple setting up firing squads to overwatch everything into oblivion in later missions.
Son of a bitch! A secnd gunman nearly takes down Masochist Slut from the shadows. It's not often humans get the drop on ubers in a night mission, but cluttered terrain like this can make it a lot more likely.
I think she came within 1 hp of falling unconscious on the spot, which would have been especially dangerous, as it would mean healing her would put her right back into the line of fire without any TU's to run away.
I pull her back to the shuttle to get patched up where she loses enough blood to fall unconscious. However, I made a blunder here; I didn't pull her far enough inside the craft, so when she got back up, she was standing stupidly outside the craft, vulnerable to being finished off.
Luckily she simply falls unconscious again and so won't be a target. The gunman that shot her is proving elusive though, which has me very worried.
We find another highwayman on this hill south of the bunker. Javelins, researched and manufactured courtesy of violence, are incredibly potent early game weapons with 150% base accuracy and up to ~90 damage in the hands of a gal near her default maximum stats for throwing and strength. The drawback is that they burn 30 stamina per shot, but they're perfect for missions like this against a handful of more dangerous foes rather than a swarm of cannon fodder.
The mission is dragging on, the last foe frustratingly difficult to find. This is where a couple dogs would have been very helpful, even if they would be likely to get shot and die. Certainly would have been preferable to our gal being shot. Morale is starting to get low as well. Thankfully our rogue outfits at least prevent us from losing extra freshness each round, which can be crippling if you bring heavy armour into the desert.
We finally found the bastard, standing creepily near our napping comrade. Enemies can actually pick up items from the mission gear stash in the ship, which can be disastrous if you bring along some really powerful stuff as a last resort for nasty surprises. Luckily, we aren't exactly hauling around a supply of rockets just yet.
As the loot screen attests, we didn't even get a god damned gal. The whole mission was a boobytrap! Argh! What a waste. Masochist is going to be in bed for 2 months.
At least our stats continue to grow. I think all 4 of the gals we sent here got the following title. Yes, we get stats as a reward for having stats.
In significantly better news, we've unlocked another important tech: Cave Hunts! We can now send our army of runts into the nuclear sewer beneath our base to go scavenging and hunting critters. They don't risk dying, and will provide random loot, albeit requiring an investment of 835 runt hours for each trip, once we factor in expended supplies. A big opportunity cost of profits for sure, but worth it in my opinion.
This setup should produce the supplies at a rate to match them getting used up. Hopefully we see the desired result soon.
Another lore dump. Again, the game has way, way more than this. I'm just posting the stuff most relevant to the plot, such as it is, or more general overview stuff. Or ones with funny writing or nice pictures. I think once I get the weapon summaries done I'll do a huge encyclopedia dump post without commentary, so anyone interested without the time to play can read the lore. That won't be for a while yet.
Our head brainer has given us a second, less insulting personality test.
This is actually an aspect of the game I don't understand yet. If we keep telling her to fuck off, we'll eventually be declared a 'Perfect Captain' and get some free infarmy. However, we'll still receive random events that indicate we're lacking certain personality traits. And researching any of the more specific options gives us entries for those traits and, AFAICT, heavily influences the random events which can have multiple outcomes. For example, an assassin can show up, and some options seem to make it likely we beat the crap out of her, while others have us naively get poisoned instead. I feel like it might be an important and viable choice, but maybe it's just 90% fluff. And I like not knowing, at least for now. Maybe I'll look up the answer after I feel like I've squeezed most of the juice out of the game. For now, I'll leave it up to you guys to decide what sort of captain we'll be.
Another bit of bizareness I don't get. The game seems to imply that if I take our airbus (or maybe a larger ship is needed?) and land it in a country getting 'big spikes' in shipping, I'll... do something good? Improve monthly income from that nation? Get infarmy? Avoid some sort of penalties?
I've no idea what consitutes a 'big spike' in any event, as the graphs tend to be clusterfucks like this. Is it just the red one from the first month? Have I not seen one yet? Shipping can get much higher, I know that. I feel like this is a non-issue that will become clear once I manage to research hyperwave decoding and can see what their ships are actually doing as they fly around.
Our base is still shabby, but it's looking a little better. We've got plenty of room for crew now, a mess hall, and several spots to build over to rapidly construct some important new facilities once we research them.
And I've researched our first real gun that isn't a rusty pile of crap. We'll buy a batch of these and keep them around for when they're useful or can get easy target practice.
The last of the big 4 branches is unlocked as well. This one is undoubtably important, but most of it's fruits feel like more longterm investments, aside from repairing the little bird.
We also get a proper description of the unique lab our base is home to. Because of it's overwhelming efficiency for providing research space and the fact that a lot of stuff requires it to be built or researched, it means abandoning our initial base or using it as anything but a dedicated research facility isn't much of an option in the near future. The that access lift in the middile of the layout, it also heavily incentivizes us to build a third hangar and make it our interceptor hub, though maybe there are better ways of utilizing the space.
Despite our focus on research rather than finding new loot to research, our options have only balooned. We've got half a dozen pages of stuff not shown here as well, and half of that is likely to either unlock more research or be an important thing that impacts our gameplay. For now, I'm going to try aim us towards acquiring sniper rifles, armour and cold weather gear, a training dojo and even more income. We've found the chitin plates we were looking for in the cave hunts, which means some light armour will be on it's way before long.
