This must have happened for quite a few of the past alphas now though I don't exactly remember when.
I dont tend to use turrets very often. If I do manage to get some up, a raider with grenades or a triple rocket launcher (I never save scummed until one of those BS weapons insta-murdered my colonists all the time without much room for counter play) destroys them in one fight.
So this leaves me relying on my pawns to head to the front lines. Sometimes the battles can be tough but only once every few skirmishes usually do some colonists not make it back. They are not the issue, they are dead.
The problem is what happens after a battle.
Everyone is injured, the base has likely been breached so dead lay scattered,
buildings damaged and dirt and blood is all round.
Then the spiral begins, a never ending event of a colonist going mad, being beaten up, sent to bed, only for another to go mad and injure the first 2. Only for another and so on, so on.
How the hell do I get around this because sometimes it gets so bad that the cycle never really ends and micromanaging that in particular becomes a real ball ache to the point I (regrettably) save scum to before the fight simply because I cannot deal with my colony on a path of self destruction after a battle.
How do others deal with this?
Maybe the colony could get a short burst of morale to counter this? E.G *Not today* - "The colony survived another assault, we were lucky."
A mental break is one thing but I find the game turning un-fun after 20 breaks in 5 minutes. I want my pawns to be at the front of the action, but the penalty for getting them hurt has too much post battle cons, especially when they can't pull themselves together and end up destroyed by the next wave the colony isn't ready to fight.
Sorry for the long read.
TL;DR - The colony kills itself after an attack.
Beer. Lots and lots and lots of beer. If you have to, get them so drunk that they vomit and pass out.
Don't forget to hand out wood logs to beat up any troublemakers with.
I, for one, don't let the fight come to my colony. I go out to them, and use "guerrilla warfare" to wound, tire and string the enemy out. Lead the enemy through traps, over rough terrain, let them get separated and frightened and wounded, and they become much easier to deal with.
It is a hell of a lot of micromanaging, to be sure ( I sure as hell love that pause button), but it works. I have 6 pawns, on a Boreal Forest Mountain map, and I have only had the enemy get to my actual colony once. There, there are overlapping fields of fire from all the outbuildings onto a central plaza ("common house", where the kitchen and dining facility is, then individual houses, and a barn/workshop area.) There is no cover in the central plaza, so 6 pawns armed with rifles and shotguns can set up a hell of a crossfire.
The one raid that actually made it to my colony was a tribal raid, and even then I drove them off through sheer weight of fire (and fire in general. The plaza is dirt, so the only thing that could burn were the bodies. Some molotovs + tightly packed tribals = bad time.) I didn't even bother "guerrilla warfare"-ing them beforehand.
to combat the negativity spiral:
1) have an assigned doctor...the best doctor in the colony...get them bionic arms if possible eventually to speed things up even more. The doctor does NOT get drafted (you'll need to monitor his position to keep him safe or use special restrictions)...even better, set his work priorities to SLEEP as soon as the attack starts.
The doctor's job is to IMMEDIATELY wake up and tend every injury ASAP after the battle. To make this easier and faster, be sure that there is a medicine stockpile in the hospital room (if you don't have a hospital, they can be easily made in any biome with trees...building with a bunch of beds all set medical...cake). Make the hospital as nice as possible to add a mood while they're there.
2) have a FAST pawn (at least no movement penalties, at best jogger with bio legs) also undrafted, set to sleep (in a pinch it can be someone who fought, wasn't injured, and has some positive mood or more resilient mental breaks) during the fight. Have him set to clean as top priority, haul as secondary priority. manually micromanage his hauling of the bodies during the "cleaning" part of his after-raid job...this will minimize the number of people seeing the bodies later.
This gets you
- shorter pain moods
- less risk of infection
- less ugliness after a raid
- a minimum of "observed a corpse"
Next:
3) set all colonists to mandatory joy time (except mr. doctor) after the raid, unless they have no mood issues. 24 hour joy time colonists will still sleep if tired, and still work if maxed on joy.
4) drink beer if you use it (i don't, in my opinion its not worth the binges)
the biggest mood losses after a raid come from:
-losing close pawns/animals
-being in pain
-being tired
-being hungry
-seeing corpses and messes
-losing joy
These should solve most of those.
I'm definitely familiar with the problem you have, though honestly i feel like its gotten much better within the last 2 alphas. You mention ugly environment so it sounds like you should consider spending a little more beautifying the areas around your base.
But 2 major things that have can help with happiness substantially in this last alpha is
1: stop butchering people. I know its a fair income loss to do so, but the mood hit is fairly large.
2: Make sarcophagus and bury someone. Its a very easy way to give a colony wide mood buff.
Burying dead raiders in a sarcophagus gives a mood bonus?
Or execute a useless colonist and bury him for a mood bonus? :)
Yeah. As Limbood said you'll want a colonists whose top priority is doctoring. As long as you get your colonists healed up and moving again all should be well fairly soon. So long as they're injuries are healing, they have a fair bit of joy and they have food they should be okay (baring any mood debuffs like Volatile or Pessimist)
I suppose the main thing is to avoid sending all of your colonists into a fight. Have straight up non-military colonists who do all the rescuing work and fixing things.
I've put military animals, like cougars and bears on colonists to protect them while drafted. They absorb some bullets as well.
You're using walls as cover right? Walls work very well in protecting people.
To maximize your turrets, try to force enemies to run into their line of fire. Rather than have them stay outside the zone of fire and destroy the turret. (As soon as an enemy rounds a corner they should meet turret fire. Keep in mind to put traps on corners of walls to prevent enemies from using it as safe cover.
Quote from: Limdood on April 14, 2016, 06:53:08 PM
to combat the negativity spiral:
~snip~
My God man, you have this down to a science. Bravo.
Very nice thread to pick up defence ideas, thanks to you :)
Quote from: Boston on April 14, 2016, 06:22:52 PM
There, there are overlapping fields of fire from all the outbuildings onto a central plaza (...) There is no cover in the central plaza, so 6 pawns armed with rifles and shotguns can set up a hell of a crossfire.
(http://tof.canardpc.com/preview/63e940bd-2981-4e88-a4d5-d5318544989b.jpg) (http://tof.canardpc.com/view/63e940bd-2981-4e88-a4d5-d5318544989b.jpg)
So I guess my (only) turret should not be surrounded by stones?
Another flaw in my design: does stones prevent the turret to shot with accuracy?
At first I make my colonists grab the outside stones because I saw reader sniper taking cover behind it (or it look like it). But then it works the other way round, the turret may be hancapicated by stones. The other idea was to make a slow down zone around the turret so that suicide reader don't come to explose it. May be not the smartest idea.
Quote from: Argelle on April 15, 2016, 05:58:10 AM
Very nice thread to pick up defence ideas, thanks to you :)
Quote from: Boston on April 14, 2016, 06:22:52 PM
There, there are overlapping fields of fire from all the outbuildings onto a central plaza (...) There is no cover in the central plaza, so 6 pawns armed with rifles and shotguns can set up a hell of a crossfire.
(http://tof.canardpc.com/preview/63e940bd-2981-4e88-a4d5-d5318544989b.jpg) (http://tof.canardpc.com/view/63e940bd-2981-4e88-a4d5-d5318544989b.jpg)
So I guess my (only) turret should not be surrounded by stones?
Another flaw in my design: does stones prevent the turret to shot with accuracy?
At first I make my colonists grab the outside stones because I saw reader sniper taking cover behind it (or it look like it). But then it works the other way round, the turret may be hancapicated by stones. The other idea was to make a slow down zone around the turret so that suicide reader don't come to explose it. May be not the smartest idea.
Yep, rubble provides cover, around 40%. Less than sandbags, but still significant.
http://rimworldwiki.com/wiki/Cover
Nice wiki article, I did not spot it earlier.
I had a troubling question reading it:
How is cover programmed?
sniper--stone----------------------------------poor colonist
Stone gives cover to the sniper so his shots are not affected, but poor colonist's one are.
sniper---------------------------------stone--smart colonist
This time it's reversed: the sniper is less likely to shot the colonist.
If all he above is true, then
sniper----------------------------stone-turret
is ok for my automatic turret?
I found that mental breaks actually delete most, if not all of the negative thoughts that someone has. For example the "I butchered humanlike" or "Sold prisoner into slavery" etc. are gone after a break, even though they should have stayed for another week or so.
So yeah, using high quality leather chairs around your dining table, and high quality beds for maximum comfort go a looooong way in keeping people happy. Always use your best construction dude to actually build furniture, just in case. And you don't even have to bury the corpses, just put them behind a wall where no one can see them.
Mental breaks removing thoughts has been confirmed to be a bug, so don't rely on it too much.
Wow! thanks for all the amazing tips!
I'll put these into practice.
Unfortunately the battle makes its way into my streets whether I dispatch colonists or not, also, that tactic tends not to work on zerg rushing Raiders.
The beer is definitely a really overlooked idea by me. I normally see it as a commodity though I should maybe start to see it as a necessity.
Quote from: Argelle on April 15, 2016, 06:31:09 AM
Nice wiki article, I did not spot it earlier.
I had a troubling question reading it:
How is cover programmed?
sniper--stone----------------------------------poor colonist
Stone gives cover to the sniper so his shots are not affected, but poor colonist's one are.
sniper---------------------------------stone--smart colonist
This time it's reversed: the sniper is less likely to shot the colonist.
If all he above is true, then
sniper----------------------------stone-turret
is ok for my automatic turret?
There's no reason to put your turrets behind cover, they cannot benefit from it. Probably best to just stick them out in the open, away from anything that can get damaged by the explosion.
Quote from: cultist on April 15, 2016, 12:26:49 PM
There's no reason to put your turrets behind cover, they cannot benefit from it. Probably best to just stick them out in the open, away from anything that can get damaged by the explosion.
The wiki says otherwise, in multiple places. How positive are you? I always wrap my turrets in sandbags.
I recently discovered your colonists can watch tv from their hospital beds. I've not had issues with mood for many in game years, but you might find that helpful. Keeping the hospital rooms clean is very important (it seems to me that dirt increases likelihood of diseases in general), as are proper floors. Sterile is great, but make sure something is there as most floor types increase beauty. Colonists suffer no mood loss from double beds if they're injured, and higher quality treatments increase healing speed. Fine meals help, lavish are prefferable. Micromanage relationships, checking for wooing attempts: if two colonists hit it off make sure they work together. The mood impacts are incredible if they get together. Use other means of finance than relying on mood killers, unless your colonists can happily survive starvation and loss. Leather, massive devilstrand plantations and healroot work with most traders, clothing can be sold to exotic merchants. Dusters are brilliant for profit. Don't build your hospital or bedrooms under a mountain. Keep a freezer stocked with food and medicine right by your hospital. Use individual rooms unless you can stay on top of cleaning/ mood. Keep rooms well lit. Use double beds and the right click menu option "rest until healed" to promote relationships. The doctors will become everyone's best friend, beware infidelity. Have at least two, preferably four, doctors, two for daytime and two for night. Prompt feeding and treatment helps all round. Use medical beds and health analysers asap. Get huskys, breed them, assign one male puppy to each colonist, wait for bonding. Protect said puppies and train them in hauling. (Huskies have the best stats of all the dogs in my opinion, and domestic animals do not produce filth) +5 mood if they stay safe, plus extra labour. Unassign once bonded and pen them to some high traffic stockpiles; beware underground areas and home as they can wander into to bug hives or past the base perimeter. Alternatively, assign them to a non combatant, circle said colonist behind any attacking forces and release animals once the attackers start fleeing. If you use this method be mindful of where the dogs are and which route they'll take. They don't follow the colonist, they move to the colonist's destination.
Well, those are little tricks and such I use. There's probably things I've forgotten but hopefully you'll find them useful. I've had colonist mood floating up to 95% at times, notably with parties and marriages. Last colonist to go berserk was a new recruit who had recently lost three family members and seen 5 allies die. He was hungry and on his way to eat a lavish meal which would have picked him up enough to carry on.
Sorry about the wall of text, I'm using a mobile and it's too frustrating to properly format. :$
Quote from: sadpickle on April 15, 2016, 12:44:24 PM
Quote from: cultist on April 15, 2016, 12:26:49 PM
There's no reason to put your turrets behind cover, they cannot benefit from it. Probably best to just stick them out in the open, away from anything that can get damaged by the explosion.
The wiki says otherwise, in multiple places. How positive are you? I always wrap my turrets in sandbags.
Just checked the code and did an additional practical test. Yes, the game now actually checks cover for turrets (it used not to), but due to some peculiarity in code, turrets are actually
more vulnerable behind sandbags! According to the accuracy report, a level 20 shooter with a normal pistol has 25% chance to hit an uncovered turret at 20 tiles, and 11% chance to hit a covered turret at the same distance. But from the development mode tests I did, it turns out covered turrets are almost always destroyed earlier. No idea why that is, that will need some further research.
/shrug in the end, you will spend more time burning clothes , bodies and stuff the hundreds of fools that got bodied than actual building or fighting. In the future, house work will take more time than anything else ..