I suspect you're right about doing the outposts earlier, but at the same time, that does nothing to slow the spread of airfields. I would love to watch a video of Dioxine take on some of these missions, just to see what kind of strategies he thinks people should be using.
As it is, I think I'm just going to try an airfield with two tanks again, and maybe if I immediately move my tanks in between the bunkers, it'll reduce the chances of them getting spotted by the RPG guys. If that works, I'll rush to get Guardian Armour, which I can probably manage in the next month or so, and see if that's enough for me to maybe take out a firebase or even a fortress. I don't think I've actually seen a firebase mission before; they weren't in the game when I was last playing.
I don't know if it's just the airfields having become fortresses too quickly (having four fortresses and a HQ in August 2602 seems unlucky) or if it's me not getting some aspect of ninja-fighting, but I don't know what else I could have really done. Kinda frustrating because I've played a solid game otherwise. I shot down any outpost creation missions I saw, but didn't feel like I could actually tackle an outpost until very recently; to do so I'm having to use my very limited supply of laser ammo and platemail and still suffering losses and injuries.
What's your general strategy for doing outposts? Close ranged or long? Day or Night? What craft are you using?
This time around? I go in the day, partly because I absolutely hate spotter/sniper shenannigans. Everyone stays in the Hawk, then pops out to take shots at anybody who's getting close to my craft. An Unipuma/camo catgirl takes out the nearest mini turrets with an omega rifle one by one, then when the herd is finally thinned down enough I try to rocket launcher/EMP grenade the main turrets down. The hardest part (apart from reaction fire) is probably halfway through when you need to leave the craft and advance, because ninja camo makes it near-impossible to avoid walking into an ambush, and those kustom SMGs hurt. Nearly lost my Unipuma catgirl last time because she was advancing at the far edge of the map, a ninja walked into her FOV and she killed it with reaction fire, and then sniper/spotter fun resulted in a bunch of shots going her way.
Currently using lasers (primarily for assault ninjas and priority targets like engineers with D.C. mortars) and gyro-autoguns with PS ammo for the rest, though I'm just debating right now whether it's worth converting all my tokens to White Dragon ones to get ETAP autogun ammo. Part of what's gotten me losses in these missions previously is that I don't have weapons that will reliably take out a ninja warrior in one burst; getting ETAP is extremely expensive to say that's it not a huge upgrade in damage, but it might make the difference. Then again maybe I should just go for Super Shooty Guns instead. If I'd had better luck with Human Commandos earlier and gotten Advanced Rifle I would have been able to make a couple of Bossguns by now which would be way better, but it wasn't to be.
I don't disagree about ninjas themselves being able to be killed early, but if you're playing ironman, your luck isn't going to hold out long enough to survive playing without a lot of caution. Your gals can die pretty easily too, after all.
In terms of immediate research priorities, after The Pharmacist and Inspect Machinery, go for V8 as fast as possible, because ground vehicle races give great infamy.
Hmm. I found I very rarely actually win races with the V8. I'm not sure if races are biased towards spawning on the south half of the globe, opposite my starting zone, or if I'm just unlucky. I find a hunt party to be more useful as it lets you do sea missions and lets you strategically delay missions by having the hunt targetting them while you manage your airbus to do something else or arrive at the right day/night timing.
Also I think the craft battery research is essential to get ASAP after inspect machinery. You miss out on like ~1/3rd of missions without it and that can easily mean 250k a month between score and items. Worse if you miss a castaway girl mission. As long as I can hit all missions I find I usually don't need to buy brainers much if at all past month 1. If I do I end up badly in debt and selling down stuff like glamour to make ends meet.
YMMV I guess. For me it's rare I can't win the race if I already have the V8 ready to go, and it's definitely worth getting a magma cannon to stick onto your Little Bird. Sea missions are definitely not a priority for me, they're risky if it's the wrong enemy type, the infamy is typically low, and the item rewards, while awesome, are often stuff you won't be able to use till lategame, like simulacrum parts. I do agree about the battery research though, it's definitely something to pick up early.
By month three, you really want to have the 'Turn castaway gal into a brainer' tech, as it saves you a lot of money.
I'm beelining that immediately to get by month 2.
I used to do this, but now I think the extra infamy you get from doing other researches in January makes up the difference (plus, February's the shortest month, and you're not guaranteed to even have a castaway gal when January ends). Ideally I'll get two or three gals from the necropirate mission in early Feb, maybe one or two more from red light villas, and then I can convert two at the start of March and two at the start of April.
Don't do Ratman Rodeo missions for the first couple of months, it's never worth it.
You do need to capture the ratman lieutenant for highway house though. I find these missions generally easy-ish.
My thinking is that ratmen have high reactions and decent accuracy, so you're quite likely to take a nasty shot or two in doing this. Plus you have to watch out for the dogs, which means you can't just turtle. Given how having your gals wounded (or worse, dead) when you need them for a mission can start you on a death spiral, and with the rewards for the rodeo being relatively small, I personally wouldn't tackle it until I had either decently trained gals, some armour, or a better craft. Highway house isn't necessary at all IMO.
- You need to have three overcharged radars completed by 1 July 2601 (as the first missile strike is a babby version). However...
- You need five OC radars (and potentially the armoured vaults to hit as well) to stave off government crackdowns. I had an Iron Tribe one early on and it killed everyone in my base except two guys. You'll have to sell a lot of shit but I'd strongly advise getting five OC radars up before August.
That's incredibly expensive, I don't get how you could afford that by that point unless you're not brainer maxing. Are you doing that in all your bases?
In the first and second ones, yes. It's definitely expensive and you'll need some luck (or be willing to sell things you might not want to sell) to be able to get the last two ones before August. But you'll also make a lot of money quite quickly when faction shipping starts landing around your area.
Depending on how things are going, by the time I need to equip the third base I might have SAM sites, which are fantastic and something I try to make a beeline to after Back To School, albeit it's a very slow beeline.
A few other tips that came to me:
- The Linux Mandrake SMG is really strong for how early you can unlock it, particularly with Slay ammo. Great for zombie and dark ones missions in particular, but also just generally useful. It was my go-to weapon for all the early ninja missions.
- Crafts that you need elevators to board, like the Faust, Jellyfish, Hawk, are fantastic. Early zombie missions, monster hunt missions (without hunters), shambler missions, etc, it all becomes free reaction training as long as you have someone standing on the lift tile. Keep an eye on morale though.
- The Faust in general is a good early replacement for your airbus, if you can get it early; give it a good pilot and a couple of 25mmx2s and it even has a chance of surviving wandering into an airfield's airspace unexpectedly.
- The earliest pogroms with Humanists are certainly doable after your first month or two, just bring some throwing axes for the military police. If it's Spartans, I wouldn't bother.
- You definitely want a couple of gals who are good at throwing. It's a great way of dealing with armour early on, and later, you can get a crazy amount of kills per turn, particularly with a crystal skull. One of my starting gals currently does 78-234 damage with sunblades. They're short-range and not great vs armour or anything with cutting resistances, but within those limitations, they're fantastic.
- When the 'Ninja attacks Govt' missions start appearing, your best bet is likely to send a single gal in a holosuit and just to immediately run for the exit zone and abort. The penalty will be about -1.7k infamy, but ignoring it costs 2.5k, and beating the mission with nearly all the friendlies/reinforcements dying will still cost you nearly the same.
