We all know turrets and killboxes by now. You may dislike Rimworld playing like a generic tower defense, but they get the job done.
Meanwhile some players boast about turretless colonies. In 90% cases or more they just use their own brand of cheese - door peeking and pot shots.
Door peeking is very effective at killing overwhelming forces. It may be too effective.
I don't actually remember the manhunter pack that I didn't kill to the last animal. In theory it's a good idea to stay inside until they leave. In practice, it's free meat even without letting turrets explode. Have 2+ doors and take a pot shot whenever there are no animals right beside it.
But without doors, manhunters rip mechanoids and tribals to pieces.
What I'm saying is that players who don't rely on turrets rely on door peeking equally heavily. The de facto situation is that vanilla Rimworld has its embrasures for most purposes, you just need to back away when a melee enemy comes close to the door. For optimum cover place doors parellel to the direction of advancing enemies.
Over-reliance on a single defense mechanism - turret or door - is equally bad, in my opinion. They're both very static and make combat not interesting. There's no maneuvering, flanking, positioning.
Try a flat map without building turrets AND without placing your shooters in doorways. It's extremely hard. You are allowed to hide from manhunters, but not shooting at them from doorways.
I run my colonies like this with all melee defenders and it's pretty fun. I do build walls and choke points, but the outer compound (power infrastructure etc) is left unblocked by doors.
QuoteWhat I'm saying is that players who don't rely on turrets rely on door peeking equally heavily.
no, not really
And how do you get so many decent melee fighters ? Training Melee skill is much harder than Shooting: you lose fingers and toes left and right. And in early game you can't produce armour to do something about it.
If you get your choke point(s) up you don't need all that many. And yeah sometimes a colonist loses a finger or even an arm or leg, oh darn ^^ If you can force enemy shooters into melee range then they get mashed because they're essentially weaponless. Manhunter packs are very difficult to completely clear but you can deal with them the same way shooter colonists do (hide indoors or pop in/out of a door). The only thing that's really nasty is the mechanoid ship part incidents, and it doesn't have to do with your point but anyhow I just mod them out because I don't enjoy the cheese required to deal with them.
I do play with Skullywag's melee shields mod but I don't embark with them and you can't make more until you unlock smithing anyway.
I appreciate your input from another point of view.
Do you consider placing IED traps around the ship 'cheese' ? It works quite well in the early game. For example in the first Autumn I had a poison ship. I placed 4 IED traps, one on each corner. I poked it, and it turned out it contained a Scyther and two Centipedes. The Scyther triggered two IEDs and died. The Centipedes were then easily dispatched with a pair of survival rifles.
Have you tried using EMP + melee against mechanoids ? There's no friendly fire other than a personal shield going down.
But forget mechanoids - you make hunting sound tricky. Do you need a group of burly men to take out a wild boar quickly ?
Glad I could inspire a whole thread ^.^
Though I agree to get any sort of long term colony you must rely on a good hunk of sharp cheddar. Whether that cheddar be horseradish flavored or plain is up to us.
I find the turretless door forts to provide a more interactive fighting style with a great deal more entertainment than kill boxes.
I'm pretty sure I couldn't survive without using one or the other though. Providing good enough cover so my outnumbered and outgunned colonists can survive, without some method for immediate retreat, is nigh impossible; especially with all the movement penalties colonists quickly accrue from scars and scratches.
Even sitting in darkness, behind sandbags, with walls on either side, shooters will still be quickly neutralized if their are 3, or more, raiders focus firing them. Having a nice firefight like in the game trailers isn't an option, when even a modestly sized raid can wipe the floor with colonists in a fair fight, or at least kill and maim enough of them that their is no way to move on.
Makes me consider keeping my colonies artificially poor when I try open layouts. A nice burn room where anything that is not necessary right this second is quickly vaporized to avoid larger raids.
I use ranged troops, no turrets or mortars, natural cover, walls of my colony and corridor to retreat if needed to change position and if I can at least one meele guy with animal skill to charge with my bears.
Tribals can me microed, they stand no chance to assault rifles and power armor troopers that can be ready in ~1 year
Mechanoids can be sniped or blasted with rockets and M16, and rockets are given by game very cheap, if terrain does not let you kill raider zooks you can always par mere 400$ for shock lance which will not only get rid of zook but also let you get his weapon much cheaper than buying it from trader.
Raiders are just free loot and I don't exploit game so no caravans too so I don't have to fight weaker version of raiders.
Quote from: b0rsuk on May 30, 2016, 03:54:14 PM
Do you consider placing IED traps around the ship 'cheese' ? It works quite well in the early game. For example in the first Autumn I had a poison ship. I placed 4 IED traps, one on each corner. I poked it, and it turned out it contained a Scyther and two Centipedes. The Scyther triggered two IEDs and died. The Centipedes were then easily dispatched with a pair of survival rifles.
Have you tried using EMP + melee against mechanoids ? There's no friendly fire other than a personal shield going down.
I think being forced to construct a specific death box around the ship part or get completely demolished is very unfun so I just don't bother with it at all. Centipedes also have really retarded melee stats (not only do they do tremendous damage per hit, they have a very fast attack speed). I just don't give a crap about the ship part events at all and am totally fine leaving them out of the game.
QuoteBut forget mechanoids - you make hunting sound tricky. Do you need a group of burly men to take out a wild boar quickly ?
Hunting stuff up to boar/alphabeaver size with melee is no big deal. You take a little damage and sometimes have to micromanage hunts because the hunter will interrupt the hunt job and return home for medical treatment, but I don't think a boar/beaver has ever downed one of my melee hunters. If you want to kill muffalos or deer bear or something then yes you bring a group in military mode and gank a bunch at one time.
e: when a hunter does get interrupted by an animal fighting back, you can just right click -> 'prioritize hunting' and they'll finish the kill
Quote from: Thane on May 30, 2016, 04:09:25 PM
Even sitting in darkness, behind sandbags, with walls on either side, shooters will still be quickly neutralized if their are 3, or more, raiders focus firing them. Having a nice firefight like in the game trailers isn't an option, when even a modestly sized raid can wipe the floor with colonists in a fair fight, or at least kill and maim enough of them that their is no way to move on.
This is a big reason I like melee defenders, because with all ranged you are either cheesing invaders' AI with turrets taking all damage for you, or you are trading shots with them.
With the manhunter packs, all you need to defeat them is a fast enough colonist. Send them out to greet the manhunter packs, they all chase that colonist, have that colonist run laps around your base as the rest of your colonists shoot them. You can also run into groups of traps.
i havent been playing rimworld too long, but i found killboxes pretty boring.
i do like building fortifications and a couple of turrets in the main entrance to my compound, but i like to fight raiders out in the open, using the terrain and trees as cover, with a few vietcong tunnels to retreat to better firing positions and just keep harassing.
i like to split my forces up, so i can flank them and encircle them. i leave a route of retreat for them to take that ends up with them getting ripped to shreds from flying lead from multiple angles.
next game im going to start focusing mostly on melee fighters. jade weapons for everyone! just like my ancestors!
As with almost everything else in Rimworld, there are mods for this.
While part of me is excited for A14, a an equally-if-not-larger part is not so excited, for the sole reason that Combat Realism is no longer going to be updated. Combat Realism is one of those mods that I refuse to play without, as the enemies become less human and more "human-shaped bullet sponges" without it.
Other than that, I do the following:
1) USE TERRAIN, basically "Fortification 101". Not just mountainsides, but lakes and marshes, anything that slows down or impedes the movement of enemies is good.
2) With the above in mind, build a blockhouse, a 5x5 building with embrasures on all 4 sides. This blockhouse will cover the approach to your colony, over the rough terrain, the sides of the valley I build my colony in 99% of the time, and the path back to my colony.
3) Negate cover. Trees, unsurprisingly, give a decent amount of cover to approaching enemies. This; 1-makes it harder for your colonists to shoot enemies, and 2- lets the enemy get closer, which makes it more likely for the enemies to kill/wound your colonists. Therefore, I usually clear trees and brush out to a distance of 1 1/2 bow-shots away from my blockhouse. Since I build 99.999% of the time using wood, this gives me building material and firewood as well.
4) Use overlapping fields of fire. My colonies are usually built around a central "plaza", around which buildings like barns, common houses (combo kitchen and dining/rec room), personal cabins and workshops are built. This plaza is not only a good place for weddings, parties and trading groups to gather in, but is also the "last line of defense" for my colony. If the raid group manages to force their way past the blockhouse, all my "noncombatants" will take up arms inside the various buildings, which have line-of-sight and embrasures focused on the central plaza. Since this central plaza has no cover and is close to the shooters, they are therefore much more effective, and get filled full of bullets and arrows from multiple directions.
The above strategy works well with firearms, especially shotguns, and even with bows.
So the internet ate my longwinded post... garrr... here's the concise version:
1) When you're outnumbered and outgunned, tactics aren't going to help much, unless you use strong cheese. I find that with a few turrets I can get by with only mozzarella strength cheese -- I shoot the attackers while the attackers shoot my turrets. And I don't have that many turrets, my colonists have to do most of the shooting.
2) Crippling afflictions are the worst aspect of letting your colonists get targeted. I might write an organ replacement mod to deal with this -- especially if I can figure out how to use devilstrand as the base to grow organs on.
That's what prisoners are for ???
Lots and Lots of bear traps !
I have done it that way for most games with a focus on stable colony first, then heavy defenses. The "Doors" I guess is one that is a bit tougher since using rooms as shortcuts and for cover is kind of par for my play but I usually use hallways for chase and draw, etc. Sandbag fortifications and wall covers is norm as well.
If I were to remove door peeking, I would do that by making door locking take time. If a colonist closes doors behind him, the door is closed but not locked. If locking takes 3 seconds, that would reduce cheese quite a lot.
In answer to the original question: I don't think it would be much fun with the available storytellers on challenge (which I consider baseline). They tend to send overwhelming forces - forces that would otherwise own your colony unless there was some cheese involved. And everything can be considered cheese if you are brave enough - even pausing the game. :D
I'd start by creating a custom storyteller that would send measured forces, and then we would also have to evaluate what would be required to survive. For starters, we'd need something to draw fire, something interesting and worth shooting at that would make the enemy stop and try to dig in. And since that is usually a turret, then you'd have to have a couple of bubbled pawns running around the battlefield instead. Note that you cannot manufacture shields and have to rely on what you pick up. Then, you'd have to provide interesting cover options for your enemy to prevent them from closing the distance too fast (stone chunks, sandbags, 1x1 walls, trees, etc). And of course, you would have to create layers of bunkers that will let you stay in the relative safety of darkness, while also lighting up the surroundings with lamps.
And having accomplished all that, and survived for sufficient amount of time, you would still have mechanoids drop from space and right into your fridge, while you are trying to decide whether to send the half of your pawns that are bedridden with malaria to fight just to have them die a few hours later from sickness.
My point being, the game effectively forces you to invent ways to cheese the hell out of your enemies with its hyperactive storytelling. And whether you consider something cheese or game mechanics is ultimately up to you.
Well...
Once I made a small tunnel killbox where 5 of my colonists would throw grenades non-stop (each one at a certain interval.
It worked wonders against the 3 tribal factions on my world.
Quote from: Thane on May 30, 2016, 04:09:25 PM
I find the turretless door forts to provide a more interactive fighting style with a great deal more entertainment than kill boxes.
That's true, and a good enough reason not to abuse doors/turrets.
Quote
Having a nice firefight like in the game trailers isn't an option, when even a modestly sized raid can wipe the floor with colonists in a fair fight, or at least kill and maim enough of them that their is no way to move on.
And this is a problem! This borders on false advertising. I just watched the trailer and it's shockingly different from what experienced players use for defense. You don't use your colonists so carelessly. You can do that for one or two raids, but it costs too much.
Quote
Makes me consider keeping my colonies artificially poor when I try open layouts. A nice burn room where anything that is not necessary right this second is quickly vaporized to avoid larger raids.
Did you know A14 will have raid leaders ? Presumably they are routed (or suffer a big morale hit) when the leader is down. This won't improve killboxes since you can no longer target them manually, but will improve shooting colonists (and yes, door peeking too).
Would it be possible to build a kind of trap where you lure enemies into a room, then seal the room, and then crank up heaters to cook your enemies inside? Like turning it up to 100 and watching them all stroke to death?
Quote from: webkilla on May 31, 2016, 02:23:59 PM
Would it be possible to build a kind of trap where you lure enemies into a room, then seal the room, and then crank up heaters to cook your enemies inside? Like turning it up to 100 and watching them all stroke to death?
Yeah, it also work with visitors and their muffalos!
So a thought just occurred to me. The movie "The Road Warrior" is the basic scenario of a Rimworld game. And the defenders in the movie do exactly the right thing -- build a perimeter, use heavy fixed weapons, and wipe out any enemies stupid enough to get close. That's the advantage a fixed defender has, the ability to build heavy weapons and heavy fortifications. Raiders have to carry everything to the attack point and so necessarily have lighter arms and defenses. Their advantage is mobility and aggression. If you venture outside the gate they chop you up.
What would help is if turrets didn't fire on their own but instead like mortars required a colonist to man them. And if they had a variety of weapon types -- not just the LMG, but also cannons, flamethrowers, etc. Raiders *should* get chewed up if they attack. But colonists should get injured too if they're not in adequately hardened positions.
And on the flip side, raiders should also be able to genuinely siege a colony -- by surrounding it and driving off merchants if they show up. This would set up an interesting dynamic. If they set up too far away then they're spread out it's easy for you to sneak out of the base and snipe at them (and scurry back to base when they counter attack). If they set up too close then you pound them with your heavy weapons.
Quote from: Shurp on May 31, 2016, 06:28:08 PM
So a thought just occurred to me. The movie "The Road Warrior" is the basic scenario of a Rimworld game. And the defenders in the movie do exactly the right thing -- build a perimeter, use heavy fixed weapons, and wipe out any enemies stupid enough to get close. That's the advantage a fixed defender has, the ability to build heavy weapons and heavy fortifications. Raiders have to carry everything to the attack point and so necessarily have lighter arms and defenses. Their advantage is mobility and aggression. If you venture outside the gate they chop you up.
What would help is if turrets didn't fire on their own but instead like mortars required a colonist to man them. And if they had a variety of weapon types -- not just the LMG, but also cannons, flamethrowers, etc. Raiders *should* get chewed up if they attack. But colonists should get injured too if they're not in adequately hardened positions.
And on the flip side, raiders should also be able to genuinely siege a colony -- by surrounding it and driving off merchants if they show up. This would set up an interesting dynamic. If they set up too far away then they're spread out it's easy for you to sneak out of the base and snipe at them (and scurry back to base when they counter attack). If they set up too close then you pound them with your heavy weapons.
That would make for an interesting dynamic and a new page for the story teller... making a Siege TRULY a siege! You would be forced to have to leave the defences of your hardened fortress and fight the besieger on THEIR terms in a way in order to end the conflict.
My strat so far was a central pillar of doorways and traps surrounding them. Then colonists or turrets at the end, or a bend then them at the end of that. Normally a good few get killed before too many traps are activated to kill anymore- the last few are killed by colonists/turrets.
Thats how i play. I find it very fun. To me killboxes seem to remove all the fun as they take away the survival element out of the survival game. Tbf I usually go out my way to avoid any exploits and I recommend that other people try to it is much more fun. My best games are when the story gives me enough time to get attached to my colonists and then forces me to make some very tough decisions (such as fighting off a group of 5 tribes people with 4 colonists 1 gun and 3 clubs try it)
Micromanaging pawns running in and out of doors is not my idea of "fun". Sounds awful. Much more entertaining to park them behind a turret screen and watch the resulting mayhem.
Quote from: Shurp on June 02, 2016, 06:59:51 AM
Micromanaging pawns running in and out of doors is not my idea of "fun". Sounds awful. Much more entertaining to park them behind a turret screen and watch the resulting mayhem.
I like both of them, but making a corridor of death where you exterminate everything is quite nice.
I would really like if the combat was a little more tatical, maybe for that to happen, slower. So when we hover our mouse we get a box of "Chance to hit, chance to be hit, parts covered, etc" This way, a defense where we need to adapt ourselfs to the play field would be really nice.
Killboxes are and will always be one of the best way to defend ourselves. But I believe the Door pickaboo can be worked on, and more raid types of events shall let the players think of other strategies to better defend themselves.
It might also help if the game clock slowed down during combat segments. Firefights shouldn't be 12 hours long. This is part of why it is hard to send your troops out of the fort into a battle; after a short while they start whining that they want to eat / sleep / drink beer. It's a real annoyance.
But also, once you do send your troops out of the base... there's no obvious way to get a tactical advantage. Shoot and scoot would work well if the attackers would follow into a previously prepared crossfire but instead they head back to their meeting point and mill about. You can't manufacture rockets to blow up their meeting point and discourage them from concentrating... there's just no good way to get them to spread out so you can pick 'em off.
well its about half 4 where i live, and that time of day gets me thinking (winky winky)
i was thinking about bases and defending, and come up with something im gonna give a hoon.
distribute my base all over the map, like little outposts/cabins. that way i can really mess with invaders. sure, theyll raze stuff to the ground, but im thinking i can hit them with groups of 2-3, and split them up. it seems the raiders get bored after theyve trashed a few things and lost a few to snipers. then i can smash the runaways with ambushes and the likes.
just a thought
Quote from: Boston on May 30, 2016, 08:20:24 PM
As with almost everything else in Rimworld, there are mods for this.
...
Combat Realism is one of those mods that I refuse to play without, as the enemies become less human and more "human-shaped bullet sponges" without it.
Combat Realism is pretty much the epitome of door cheese. 3 guys with SMGs can mow down 20-30 tribals. A couple more armed with assault rifles can keep dozens more pinned down with the ridiculous suppression mechanic.
The way to counter both kill boxes and door cheese, is to have the attackers better geared and with better tactics. Like sapper raids - its much more difficult to door cheese a large raid when they are throwing 2 or 3 frag nades on your door. But for some reason CR removed sappers entirely. Then added barbed wire to make the kill box even more effective. ::)
Quote from: chchgreen on June 04, 2016, 12:33:45 AM
distribute my base all over the map, like little outposts/cabins.
That's actually an interesting idea. I'm pretty sure the attackers will just charge whatever human happens to be closest (as manhunting animals do). But if he goes inside they'll wander off to attack someone else...
...hmmm, this sounds like door cheese again. Just on a larger scale.
Quote from: Shurp on June 04, 2016, 05:33:50 AM
That's actually an interesting idea. I'm pretty sure the attackers will just charge whatever human happens to be closest (as manhunting animals do). But if he goes inside they'll wander off to attack someone else...
...hmmm, this sounds like door cheese again. Just on a larger scale.
Difference is you are not going to be just sitting back in fast forward laughing the way to the bank. Urban warfare does work well, but it is the player needing to stay focused. It does have disadvantages as well. Combat takes longer to complete so mood effects do more. The spreading out of the raiders can lead to more damage to your colony plus falling back is harder.
Yeah, door cheese is a thing, but at least it is an active player thing. Trying to make AI to counter that could end up exploiting as well or just being very complex. I guess one way to do it would be if the AI could split into groups? Have a priority table for each raider that comes in. It would be more system intense in that any time a new colonist engages the raiders, the table needs to update and place the colonist accordingly. Result would be that the raiders split up and start bashing down the door that causes them to lose pathway to. It also prevents exploitive baitings since some raiders will still priority stockpiles or non colonists.
So imagine if you will a raid forms, the raider is designated with a trait to be looter, raider, sapper or leader. Attackers would be like raiders now. Prioritizing going after colonists but would have the priority table. Sappers focus on bypassing defenses to a random target set on raid spawn. Looters have a set inventory and try to fill it. Once filled, they flee the field. Leaders have a set path they target regardless of bait. They will act as anchor for the other three.
This is the critical part, how they all work together. The fact that a general objective is generated is key. The most efficient way to do this is to generate a value objective and they will start at most vulnerable value items until the looting value is reached. Much like any job a pawn does, this route is advaptive and ran entirely by the leader.
The leader jobs get passed on to the other raiders though. So if route says go through walls, then sappers are the ones doing it. Attackers are anchored on the leader similar to how mechanoids anchor on a ship component when initially triggered. Attackers stay around the leader to create a perimeter wall. Should colonists appear, the previously mentioned priority table is created, always trying to go after the highest priority.
For door games, they will chase to a door and attempt to break it down. If the colonist is in that room, they will continue pursuing up to a certain range. If they break down a door and pawn is gone, they reset back to the leader.
Sorry if that is confusing anywhere. Just typing as I am thinking as a way to create a programming friendly AI that is simple enough to hopefully not be exploitable. The best way is to have an assortment of behaviors from the raiders.
Personally I've just discovered how useful traps actually are.
In the early game I relied on choke points in the main streets of my village (I don't like using walls much until late game if at all)
Once mid game hits I tend to rely on a perimeter defence around the town using trenches of sandbags and people armed to the teeth. I try and set up a base when they will naturally pour through a smaller gap to maximise hit count.
In the late game when enemy numbers begin to far outweigh what individual colonists could take out I rely on extensive Minefields, mixed of both IEDs and Incendiaries as well as a Mortar line within the colony to thin the numbers.
It takes time and resources to maintain but hey, got to use all those components for something by the end. :)
Quote from: Britnoth on June 04, 2016, 03:20:38 AM
Quote from: Boston on May 30, 2016, 08:20:24 PM
As with almost everything else in Rimworld, there are mods for this.
...
Combat Realism is one of those mods that I refuse to play without, as the enemies become less human and more "human-shaped bullet sponges" without it.
Combat Realism is pretty much the epitome of door cheese. 3 guys with SMGs can mow down 20-30 tribals. A couple more armed with assault rifles can keep dozens more pinned down with the ridiculous suppression mechanic.
The way to counter both kill boxes and door cheese, is to have the attackers better geared and with better tactics. Like sapper raids - its much more difficult to door cheese a large raid when they are throwing 2 or 3 frag nades on your door. But for some reason CR removed sappers entirely. Then added barbed wire to make the kill box even more effective. ::)
I mean..... yeah, that is what SMGs, and other rapid-fire weapons, were designed for. Suppression and the takedown of large amounts of targets in confined spaces. SMGs were designed and brought into use in Trench Warfare during WW1, for that exact purpose.
And, suppression works both ways. My colonists have gotten suppressed more than once, usually by pirates, but once even by a poopton of tribals firing bows.
Lastly, the main thing I like about Combat Realism is that....., well, with Combat Realism people tend to actually die when shot. Both colonists and opponents. I had a colonist lean around a wall, only to immediately take a bullet to the face and die.
It might make my point a little better to say that I have little problem with "door cheese". It is realistic (lean out from cover, fire, lean back into cover). It would be better, much better, if the enemy weren't so stupid and forgot about the pawn as soon as they ducked back into cover, but that is a problem with the AI in general (it being stumblefuck stupid), not with actually using realistic tactics.
The easy death part is a bit of a turnoff I think. Devalues colonist? Not instant kills, but needing timely triage is what I like. Doesnt that also put more weight on autoturrets?
http://imgur.com/1R8pWPF
would this be considered a cheesey kill box? i dont have any turrets, and the doors are in the tunnels, so i cant peekaboo out of them