How to bring the colonies out into the open again?

[Kegereneku]

When was the last time you were overseas in a hostile area, just curious?

Sorry but this is the internet. There's many real & false professional who will both use arguments of authority to make claims that are not factual, unfounded or outside anyone's ability to predict (too many parameters left undefined). So let's both avoid personal attack and try to find something we can agree on.

I think we are simply getting lost in the wording and the inherent subjectivity of game balance, because I don't disagree with most of what you said, yet it doesn't make a defense-wall for colony any more realistic.
Said another way : That Redneck example isn't Rimworld, but Rimworld isn't a simulator for a particular type of US military base either.

Consider this, below is why I consider perimeter walls don't have to be a obligatory playstyle.

- Faction/Raider : They can be dealt with quite efficiently without a P-wall, as rather than having a line-battle you have urban warfare.
- Siege with mortar : their goal in term of gameplay was to force the players to go out attack them. P-wall don't change that and there's no reason to.
- Manhunter-pack : If they didn't homed right on the colonist like frigging Terminator, a wall wouldn't be needed.
- Mechanoid : They are Terminator & heavily equipped, damage is meant to be inevitable, taking them out for now is a mix of Exploit and bait and switch. A perimeter wall slow their approach but can easily make it worse.
- FALLOUT : is not geared toward P-wall but Fortress and Bunker with easy indoor farms.
- Starvation : As of Alpha14 growing food isn't very hard, indoor or outdoor don't make much difference.
- Temperature : Because of the above, producing food-indoor all year is more efficient than storing huge quantity.

We all want more flexibility in our playstyle, but right now farm-fortress is forced and bunker are still ridiculously overpowered. So I say : if we change things, the necessity for a p-wall have to go.

Your turn.

Concrete barricades that can be installed and uninstalled, alongside being able to prioritize construction/repair work for drafted people.
[...]
The result? Rise of the combat engies. And the snipers. Or something. Dunno where I was going with that.

I think I see what you want to do, giving the ability to move gun-nest easily without a reliance over heavy walls.
But I'm not sure it will favor open-base more than bunker. Still sound nice.

[Alpha393]

Yeah, the idea was to make mobile defence both possible and reliable. Perhaps an increase in the no-friendly-fire range would help as well?


Another thing that would help drastically: firing lighter weapons like sidearms, PDWs, SMGs, shotguns, and maybe LMGs while moving, with reduced accuracy. Heavier weapons recieve the aforementioned bipod/tripod bonus.

And moving during weapon cool downs. Why is that not a thing? Are they reloading? Then why reload an LMG with (presumeably) a hundred or so bullets ready to fire after just a few shots? I'd buy not being able to move while taking a minigun apart to dump more bullets in, or needing to stop to chamber another bullet in a bolt action properly, but a sidearm? An assault rifle? Grenades? A LONGSWORD? Why do those suffer from self-stun cool downs for little to no real reason?

Perhaps LMGs could recieve benefits of both light and heavy weapons to give them a reason to exist alongside miniguns?

Maybe make it linked to shooting stat? If it's above ten, they can move during light weapon cool downs? Same for melee probably.

[Strill]

Is it true that enemy waves get stronger the more turrets you have? If so, this heavily discourages you from building out in the open. An open base requires defensive bunkers on all sides, but can only bring one side's turrets to bare in any given fight. A killbox base, however, can use all of its turrets in every single fight.

Therefore, an open base would have far more turrets than the killbox base, giving it harder enemy waves, but have far less actual defense.

[SpaceDorf]

it is somewhat true.

The size of the attack is defined by the number of pawns, the value of your colony ( yes turrets are valuable ) and age of the colony.
There is a pretty complex algorithm at work which Tynan is pretty secretive about and there are a lot more variables in it than that .. but those 3 are the ones you can guesstimate the best

So yeah More Turrets mean more Attackers

[Alpha393]

The turret problem can be solved by using your much more valuable colonists as turrets, with one or two actual turrets on each side to draw fire.

[SpaceDorf]

True.

The Alpha15 update has a pretty good carrot in it.
With the new ressource extraction fields, there are certainly places you have to be outside for.

[chaotix14]

True.

The Alpha15 update has a pretty good carrot in it.
With the new ressource extraction fields, there are certainly places you have to be outside for.

resource extraction fields? Like the kind you have in the alpha 13 hardcore sk pack?

[SpaceDorf]

I don't know, the changelog was not this specific ..

I read it as a mixture of the M&Co Mining Sonar and a Ressource Extractor.
And since RNG says the good ones are always on the ass end of nowhere its pretty much a given

[chaotix14]

I don't know, the changelog was not this specific ..

I read it as a mixture of the M&Co Mining Sonar and a Ressource Extractor.
And since RNG says the good ones are always on the ass end of nowhere its pretty much a given

Yup yup, I've read the notes now. If those clusters are infinite(or very large) that's one hell of a carrot, if not then I guess it's not gonna change much.

[SpaceDorf]

Well, if you cleaned the map of everything else, even a small amount of plaststeel would be worth fighting for.
But I believe they will be medium to large sized since they are described as endgame content.

And I allready know, that I will build Bunkers around them
Just like my Steam Vents

[DariusWolfe]

Your turn.

Okay.

First I'll start by saying that if you considered my last post a personal attack, you must live in an exceedingly polite corner of the internet. Second, your insinuation that I'm lying was subtle, but not that subtle; It's irrelevant though, because some very quick research will support my points, whether you accept my expertise or not.

I'm not disagreeing with your aims to encourage more open gameplay. I'm in (obviously) vehement disagreement with the claims you're using to support your argument, that walls are outdated and unrealistic in an era of guns and explosives. Solid fact supports my claim that it simply isn't so.

On to some of your specific points (addressing aggressors, because defensive walls aren't intended to deal with acts of nature)

Raiders: Can be dealt with effectively, but not efficiently by any definition of the word I understand, without resorting to a perimeter wall. With any attacking force larger than your defensive force, which begins to occur fairly early on, you'll have to micromanage your defenders pretty closely in anything other than British-style firing line. Unless you're going melee heavy, the shorter firing lines of urban combat are going to be a big disadvantage (in Rimworld) for your defenders. Perimeter walls canalize the attackers into places where you can maximize aiming and firing time, without having to move your shooters very much. In real life, it's not quite as much of a problem as aiming time isn't an immutable number, and snap shots aren't as problematic at urban combat ranges, but all the same, perimeter walls dissuade direct assaults.

Mortar sieges are a good counter to perimeter walls, but the problem is the mountain roofs and dwarfing here. Any problem that can be entirely ignored by building a certain way is a pretty strong encouragement to build in that way. If mortars were used a bit more intelligently, to target defensive structures such as perimeter walls and turrets (and killboxes), it'd be a small improvement, but of course, it would only further encourage people to build those structures under mountain cover.

Mechanoids: As they don't directly target the wall, I'm not sure of a scenario where a wall would make this worse. Scythers may close to melee range, but the walls will help direct them to positions that are advantageous to the defenders. The mini-guns will chew through a wall eventually, but in the mean-time, the walls provide strong defense against them, and I haven't seen that the centipedes move fast enough to worry about; They're barely mobile tanks. If they moved faster, and were able to focus fire on (or ram through) walls, they'd be considerably more dangerous to wall-based defenses, though they'd be about equally dangerous to mobile defense strategies, too.

Manhunter packs: I don't know of a way to change them without making them a complete joke, to be honest. The suggestions to have them attack everything so they become more of a general threat like Alphabeavers is good, but it removes the primary danger, which is them catching a colonist in the open. But so long as you're able to get your people into either a perimeter wall or a connected base, they're a nuisance at best.

Interestingly, urban warfare is super effective against them, though, since they often move as a group. You can essentially treat them the same way you would a Thrumbo, having distributed shooters popping out of a door, shooting until they get close, then pulling inside and repairing the door while another shooter pops out and pulls them their way. This is also possible with a closed base with more than one exit, but usually less effective as the base itself is an obstacle your shooters will often have to maneuver around.

For urban combat (or any combat style based on fast, short-ranged engagements) to be viable in the game, I think you'd need to increase the effect of range on accuracy, and shorten aiming times, possibly based on range to target. It'd reduce the effectiveness of melee rushes at firearm-wielding enemies (without shields, at least) but still keep it pretty deadly once they've closed that range. Reduced risk from mad melee charges may be enough to encourage more active combat styles, as well; Once you've got a melee dude in your face, you're pretty well fucked unless you can get a pet or someone to give you room to break away, so it encourages you to take extreme measures to keep melees far away. (plus, seriously, at no point should anyone with functional eyes miss a point blank shot on a downed target; Missing should happen, but not often, when a club-wielding madman is charging at you)

[Alpha393]

I come bearing more carrots in favor of open base combat.

LMG maximum spread decreased. You know, so it suppresses THEM and not US.

LMG burst increased to 12. More shooty = less stabby.

Minigun maximum spread decreased marginally.

Shotgun: fires 8 buckshot(pellets?) that deal 5 damage each, low spread.

Colonist movement speed increased, weight mechanic from combat realism added in simpler form. Basically make miniguns heavy and light machine guns- well, light.

Add a new gun: the flare gun. Not a conventional flare gun mind you, but more of a flare shotgun. Fires sticky white flares that light up a small area around where they hit, can stick to enemies.

A new trap: the flare trap. Sticks enemy with a flare when tripped.

Riot shields: fits in same spot as personal shield, regenerates at half the speed, light weapons can be fired through it from the inside.

Make EMPs shut down power armor for a few seconds, slowing the user to half speed.

Give tribals more weapons. Maybe crossbows eventually, as a long range high burst medieval tier sniper?

Swap the coding for the smart and dumb AI.

Give raiders an objective so you can choose to fight or appease. You want some wood? Sure, come again next week. You want plasteel? *drafts whole colony*

[b0rsuk]

Well, if you cleaned the map of everything else, even a small amount of plaststeel would be worth fighting for.
But I believe they will be medium to large sized since they are described as endgame content.

And what makes you think they don't spawn under mountains ?

[SpaceDorf]

I come bearing more carrots in favor of open base combat.

LMG maximum spread decreased. You know, so it suppresses THEM and not US.

LMG burst increased to 12. More shooty = less stabby.

Minigun maximum spread decreased marginally.

Shotgun: fires 8 buckshot(pellets?) that deal 5 damage each, low spread.

Colonist movement speed increased, weight mechanic from combat realism added in simpler form. Basically make miniguns heavy and light machine guns- well, light.

Add a new gun: the flare gun. Not a conventional flare gun mind you, but more of a flare shotgun. Fires sticky white flares that light up a small area around where they hit, can stick to enemies.

A new trap: the flare trap. Sticks enemy with a flare when tripped.

Riot shields: fits in same spot as personal shield, regenerates at half the speed, light weapons can be fired through it from the inside.

Make EMPs shut down power armor for a few seconds, slowing the user to half speed.

Give tribals more weapons. Maybe crossbows eventually, as a long range high burst medieval tier sniper?

Swap the coding for the smart and dumb AI.

Give raiders an objective so you can choose to fight or appease. You want some wood? Sure, come again next week. You want plasteel? *drafts whole colony*

Sounds good, supported by Tynans choice to reduce friendly fire chance.

The Flame options you suggest are allready in, Incendiary Launchers, Mortars and IEDs.
Also your suggestion sounds alot like white phosphorous.

The EMP Idea is great and could be extended to the sci-fi weapons like the charge rifle or shields

Actually Crossbows are crap compared to Greatbows, there just easier to use ..

What you said about the LMG and Miniguns gave me the idea of different fire modes for the big guns.

Aimed Fire and Suppression Fire.

Aimed Fire consists of smaller Bursts, more Accuracy and longer Aiming time.
Suppression Fire is Long Bursts, absolutely no Accuracy and short Aiming time. ( pulling the trigger and letting the barrel sway from left to right )

Also to make the Tribals stronger,( and satisfy our wall-hating friends here ) bows and pilas like grenades have a ballistic trajectory and should be able to send their missiles over walls.

And talking about firemodes would satisfy alot of the points DariusWolfe made about urban warfare.
If we had the firemodes ( snapshot, burst, aimed ) like X-Com had the tactical use of the colonists would explode.
The best example would be apocalypse from the original series, because it was realtime/paused. I have not played the new ones yet.

[SpaceDorf]

Well, if you cleaned the map of everything else, even a small amount of plaststeel would be worth fighting for.
But I believe they will be medium to large sized since they are described as endgame content.

And what makes you think they don't spawn under mountains ?

Nothing
I even expect them to spawn under mountains .. but they would be way harder to find and reach than outside ones.
What I also expect is for the RNG to be a giant douche and the few ressources I want and need are those located in the worst
possible locations.

-- EDIT --

Oh, but I think the tribe on my planet support our discussion

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