Info (Piratez)

This page may be outdated. It is up-to-date for version 0.98D1. The latest version is v.N1.

Piratez features hundreds of distinct changes from vanilla X-Com. Here is a list of what you can expect:

New Enemies:

Most aliens are gone and replaced with entire factions, consisting of their own units and background.
Factions will generate their own missions; some of which are unique and alter the Geoscape.
Global factions are the main opponents, but don't be surprised by the other groups you'll be contending with!
Way more UFOs, now called "Shippings". Researching ship types is vital as even small ships can obliterate your interceptors, if you're not careful!

Hands:

Lead a band of female mutant pirate soldiers, now called "Hands".
All hands are mutants from the "Uber" strain; they are faster, stronger, smarter and more resilient than pureblood humans!
Melee plays a main part in the Battlescape; carve up enemies with cutlasses and chainsaws or take them hostage by stunning them with cattle prods or asphyxiating them with rope!
Psionics is now called "VooDoo"; takes a bit longer to unlock through research and requires specific armors in order to perform the VooDoo. Note: Hands won't be as powerful psionically as vanilla X-Com soldiers did!
Every stat plays a role, especially with the Combat Stress system.
Hands have a quickdraw slot, allowing for rapid access to small items like pistols, grenades, and alcohol.

Armor/Equipment/Weapons

Huge arsenal of weapons, equipment and armors.
Weapons still have tiers, but are not necessarily direct upgrades.
Many classes of weapons; pistols, SMGs, shotguns, heavy weapons, and more.
Most weapons can have multiple types of ammunition, such as acidic clips, plastasteel magazines, and laser-tipped!
Massive amount of melee weapons to complement your hands and their mutant abilities: chainsaws, katanas, power fists, and spears.
Alcohol is the mainstay for any pirate; boost your morale or pour it on your wounds!
Way more options for equipment like landmines, smoke bombs, dynamite, acid flasks, and bagpipes.
Many items are consumable now, such as beer, bandages, and vodka.
Armor still has tiers but each armors have niches in respective tiers.
Armor is generally broken into three categories: Outfits (unarmored or mostly), Armored, and Power Armor.
Armors now have specific limits on how many inventory slots are available. Bikini babes, may not be able to lug as much as Power Armor.

Research

Research tree is completely changed; nothing is the same!
Expect progress to be slow, you are a band of pirates!
Limited research facilities minimizes research focus, but still a vital part in order to complete a campaign.
Research projects require hostages, items, facilities; don't expect to be able to start producing the best items right away.
Research branches into several directions (Crafts, Facilities, Weapons, etc), so don't focus too heavily into one area.

Facilities:

Some of the original facilities return (albeit with different names), but there are way more added.
Advanced facilities will require research (some a lot!) and may even be dependent on prior facilities to be in place prior to construction.
Some facilities will unlock certain types of manufacturing, such as Stills only producing alcoholic items!
Some facilities have multiple features: expand general quarters, storage space or more.

Scoring Mechanics:

You play as a band of female pirates, seeking infamy and freedom against the purebloods and Star Gods' rule.
Scoring is based on working with the Mutant Alliance; the impoverished masses of the world in all the local governments. In addition, the higher-ups in the governments are tired of playing second-fiddle to the major powers, like the Academy or Traders Guild, and willing to pay protection money for you to not attack government ships and instead target the global factions to undermine their strength.
Scoring also directly affects your income. You earn bonus cash based on your monthly infamy.
Attacking government ships can result in negative scores, essentially harming your agreement with the leaders of the governments and damaging your reputation with the Mutant Alliance.
Terror Missions are now called Pogroms and are just as important in responding to, otherwise face the consequences of "Zero Tolerance" policies against piracy!

Tactical Combat:

Melee has become a huge focus in Piratez, so avast ye swabbies!
Hands are mutants and have naturally better Night Vision than purebloods! This can be hampered or even improved by certain armors.
Night Vision can be used during night missions in your favor! You'll be able to spot enemies farther and attack more safely. Be aware of enemies that utilize some form of night vision goggles, however!
Smoke is still a viable tactic, as some armors even allow your hands immunity to smoke damage.
Take care against Power Armored enemies; they are extremely resistant to most weapons unless you attack from behind or use specific weapons/ammo they are weak against (such as Acid).
Fire is an amazing morale killer and very useful against larger units (2x2 size) as they will take cumulative damage from each tile hit they were in!
Be wary of Psionic enemies as your hands are not as resilient psionically as vanilla X-Com soldiers could be. Likewise, don't expect your VooDoo-toting hands to be God Incarnates, either!

Air Combat:

A few original craft re-appear but you will eventually discover plenty of new vessels fitting into three categories: Interceptor, Transporters & Multi-Role.
Vessels can have hardpoints of three types: Light, Missile, and Heavy. There is a lot more armaments as well as equipment that can be used in place of a weapon to improve a vessel in some way.
"Scouting" is a very important part of the Air Engagement. Using a fast craft to identify the radar contacts can help you avoid catastrophic engagements as well as allow you to follow a vessel until it lands.
Focus on landed ships more than interceptions until you are knowledgeable about enemy shippings and their images as any size ship can easily destroy yours!
Interceptions tend to be difficult until your technology and financial stability can allow for multiple ships, fuel and replenishing spent ammunition.
Reconnaissance can make the difference in how productive your operation will be. Radar craft such as Pigeons and Zeppelins can provide excellent intelligence in regions beyond the range of your hideouts.

Current Version

X-Piratez v0.99G. Latest Download Thread

Thread for Upgrading Saves Between Versions

Change Log

Full Change Log is here on the wiki.

Acknowledgments

Author: Dioxine

The mod is using a custom executable made by Yankes: http://www.openxcom.com/mod/openxcom-extended, & its fork made by Meridian: http://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,4187.0.html

Credits:

Alex_D: discussions and suggestions
Arthanor: Stun explosion animation, discussions and suggestions, small gfx upgrades, Juggernaut sprite
Bloax: Additional Inventory / Pedia gfx; Synthmuscle Suit paperdoll; paperdoll enhancements; Rod of Hellfire, Hovertank Pedia pict
Civilian: Extra farm terrain
Chaosshade: Death Blossom clip, SR Shotgun base
Chiko: parts of some weapons
Clownagent: extra pirate names, Superheroes mod, berets, Parrot mod
Daedalus: HQ sound pack
DracoGriffin: bug hunting, English editing, some texts, discussions and suggestions, online Bootypedia
eatthepath: some texts
Gifty: Flamethrower model redraw base, Small Revolver base
GrandSirThebus: ES Rifle, ES Pistol (updated)
Hellrazor: Map fixes, Terrain Fixes, Expanded Urban maps
Hobbes: Pretty much all non-standard maps, unless otherwise stated, were made by this great writer/modder. Also Knockout Grenade gfx
Hythlodaeus: Amiga font
Ivan Dogovich: Handobs for original UFO objects (which were missing from the original game), additional gfx, text editing, playtesting, advertisement, general support
Jackstraw2323: Loader armor battlescape sprite, 25mm Cannon pedia image, Church Priest base, Humanist Power Armor base
KingMob4313: inspiration for automatic weapons balance, good ideas in general, base for some graphics, sound collection
Luke83: a lot of sprites I used whole or in parts, or as recolors (scientists, engineers, gangs, civs, cyborg, black mutons); modified UFOs tileset; expanded urban maps
Meridian: testing, bugfixing, popularization
Mick the Mage: Baracuda interceptor
Miguel/Alinare: Armored Car base
Moriarty: blade handob
Mr.Quiet: Suggestions
morisaki0144: Musket Bayonet
NeoWorm: Tech Blade
Niculinux: Some ripped sprites, general support
NoirSuccubus: base for the Ol' revolver
Phaedris: Muton Commander (Mercenary Captain)
Ran: Active contribution, collab on blue armors, suggestions
Redv: E3 Hawkeye
Robin: Rail Driver, bigobs for the govt agent & govt faction corpses bigobs, Cyclops alien race, Ghoul, Smoke animation, carapace-armored legs & arms sprites, MIB ship tileset
Roxis231: Alternate Armors gfx, collab on Pirate & unarmored outfit variants
Rockfish: Tons of weapons, sometimes used straight, sometimes reworked
RSSWizard: Some weapon sprites (notably Death Blossom, Reticulan Plasma Gun, Blizzard)
Ryskeliini: Guns, guns, guns! LMG, SSRL, SMG, Magnum handob & bullet, Flak Cannon w/ hit anim, Taser, Battle Flag base
Shadics & Gabots: Laminated Power Suit (Harbinger)
Skorpio/Opengamerart.org: base for the Conqueror sprite
Solarius Scorch: Many great contributions: maps, gfx, text, etc.
Sporb: Heavy Chainsaw, Base for Grenade Launcher, Tornado Ammo, M-Cooker, Heavy Slugthrower
Tentacular: resources for the bathroom tileset
Tentaculat Soup: base for the Mining Laser model
Tollworkout: Ripper, Shredder
Toshiaki2115: Sniper Rifle
Tyran_nick: Elerium Mace, Thunderstorm craft, Plasma Spitter
Uncy: Doom mod
Warboy: a lot of sprites again, cut, pasted and generally butchered (mostly arms/legs reused), the Sentinel craft, also for making OpenXcom and answering my endless questions!
XOps: Nightmare & Deathchaser, Fistycuffs, Vulcan Ammo, clips for some weapons, base for Blackmarch SMG & Adv. Sniper Rifle, Adv. SMG, Omega Rifle, melee animations, some base facilities sprites, parts of sprites/paperdolls (Spartans, Highwaymen, Human Commando, Merc Shock Trooper), some handobs
Yrizoud: Clips for laser weapons (pistol Lo, rifle Hi, HLas Lo), improved AK & Cutlass sprites
Zane: Bio-Armor sprite base
Zharkov: Porn, Superslave branch ideas, code & texts

Special thanks to Falko for great help with bugfixing.

Installation

WINDOWS

Unpack the mod. It will create a complete Openxcom_XPiratez folder with all the files that you need; it will contain Meridian's custom build of OpenXcom Extended named "OpenXcomExPlus29.exe".
Copy files from your original "UFO: Enemy Unknown"/"X-Com: UFO Defense" folder to the "OpenXcom_XPiratez/UFO" folder.
Use OpenXcomExPlus29.exe to run the game.
Choose "Piratez" as the master mod from the Game Options menu.
Includes four sub-mods: helmetless/maskless armor paperdoll variants made by Roxis231, as well as an alternate StarGod Coordinator image to honor Dioxine, and an optional Naughty Mod which allows the gals to run around in the buff.

LINUX

Compile your own version of Meridian's OXCom-Extended Plus build.
Unpack the mod. Put the contents of the /user directory into your installation folder.
Ignore the rest of the archive (as it contains Windows installation).

Upgrading

There is a thread for information relevant to upgrading between XPiratez versions here.

Gameplay Settings

Essential Options:

Spend Research Items (there are many items in this mod that can be researched repeatedly, so not enabling it is a straight cheat)
UFO Extender Accuracy (all the weapons are balanced with this in mind)
Live Alien Sale (releasing people for ransom is an important part of the game)
Explosion Height: 2 (realistic explosions are very important too)

Recommended Options:

Storage Limits For Recovered Items (for items and prisoners; realistic mode, forces decisions)
Force Craft Launch (pirates rarely have the luxury of having armed, undamaged and fully-fueled craft... much less all at the same time!)
Airborne Transfers (make more sense)
Inventory Stats (crucial for keeping track of your encumbrance!)
Alternate Movement Methods (because they're more in line with the adventurous approach to the theme)
Alien Bleeding (to make it a bit easier to play... but harder to catch enemies alive. Plus they're mostly humans, they should bleed.)

Discouraged Options:

Instant Grenades (You can throw multiple grenades in this mod and they won't destroy each other)
Alien Weapon Self-Destruction (unless you never want to have top-tier guns)

Troubleshooting

If you discover a bug, try the following steps to resolve it and report the bug to Dioxine

Save your game and reload.
Save your game, shut down Piratez and restart Piratez.
Save your game, shut down Piratez, and restart your computer.
Save your game, delete Piratez folder, re-download Piratez and re-install Piratez.
Report the bug in the X-Piratez thread. Please include the save game and steps to replicate the bug, as well as any other mods or settings not encouraged.

If You Get a Crash To Desktop (CTD) Please help by posting all information in the X-Piratez thread.

Describe how the crash occurred.
Include the save game as well as the openxcom.log in the \Piratez Folder\user folder.

FAQ

How do I help with getting information into the Bootypedia?

Ruleset delving. Essentially, you need two things: latest version of Piratez and a text editing program (preferably Notepad++). The rulesets used by X-Piratez are in the \user\mods\Piratez\Ruleset ; notably Piratez.rul contains most information and Piratez_lang.rul contains the text and spelling entries. WinMerge is an additional tool for editing as it can be used to highlight differences between files (notably the rulesets), allowing for quicker updating of the Bootypedia's information from previous versions. Another alternative is Diffchecker.com.