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I'm looking for balance feedback! So please just tell me: which style of raid is the hardest to deal with?

I'm not the most experienced.  I've gotten my people off the planet twice, both times in less than 3 years, on 100% and 60% difficulty.

And the hardest type, in my experience, is where they drop out of the sky on your doorstep.  There's no time to prepare, some of your people may be out in the field, and unless you have everything underground, chances are they are inside some or most of your defenses.

Quote from: Eleazar on February 23, 2015, 12:20:14 AM
I'm not the most experienced.  I've gotten my people off the planet twice, both times in less than 3 years, on 100% and 60% difficulty.

And the hardest type, in my experience, is where they drop out of the sky on your doorstep.  There's no time to prepare, some of your people may be out in the field, and unless you have everything underground, chances are they are inside some or most of your defenses.

Would this be Alpha 9 you're talking about?

It's siege.

Siege attackers were one of the easiest type of raid(Alpha 8 ) due to its inaccuracy, small explosion radius and the fact that they fire only a few shots before start rushing.
Now, mortar is much stronger in both damage and radius, and they persist really longer so it's a big threat. Especially incendiary ones.

When you get sniper rifles though, you can shoot them to death and they just don't approach you but stand behind their sandbags.
For melee-only siege attackers, they do follow your snipers so it could be a problem, but they actually follow you until they are in your turrets' range. So lure them, kill them one-by-one and they have no choice but to rush forward.

Drop pods were not a real threat for me as I can select where they would drop by placing a trade beacon. Outside of my first defense line.

i don't think that raids need any balance.it wood be more fun if there be more types of raid.             P.S Raid from 2-4 sides of the map with 2-8 pirates from each side,and the late game raid 3+ yare, spy attack in the night with no message of the attack,the goal of the spy will be to kidnap colonist. that wood be awesome  :D :D :D Sorry for bad english :)

Sieges have become tougher in A9 thanks to more accurate mortars and the constant drop pods of food and ammo that means the siegers can lob shells indefinitely. Compare that to A8's inaccurate mortars and sieges that would break once food ran out.

The change is nice as it moves the game from turtling towards search and destroy (or at least hit and run). But it's noticeably more difficult because mortars (especially incendiaries) can overwhelm the colony if the player doesn't respond quickly enough.

Drop pods aren't that bad due to the lower number of attackers, but I also haven't had too many. The time it takes for drop pods to open means I have enough time to flick the power switch on for turrets and direct colonists towards strongpoints.

I don't rate sieges as particularly hard in A9 but.. I'm biased - I like melee weapons.

Personal shields make a mockery of sieges, shame about the centipedes forcing some really obnoxious weapon switches...
Which pretty much leave drop pods, since they leave the least time for my weapon swaps

So far in A9:
1. Sieges. The biggest threat from these for me so far is the fire resulting from incendiary rounds. Once they decide to assault it's on par with an Stage-then-attack.

2. Drop pod attacks. Threat is dependent on how you've got your defences set up and where they land in relation to those defences.

I've effectively lost 3 A9 colonies to these combined.

The other two attacks haven't caused much problem unless they've quickly followed one of the above. It was an immediate attack that killed off my last colony but it was the drop pod attack that really did the damage.

I do like the weapon load out of pirates more in A9 than A8, more mixed with fewer sniper rifles. The first personal shield attack was interesting but in the end no threat. Perhaps if/when pirates get stonger personal shields.

In general my experience with Rimworld is that attacks scale up too fast but it's also too easy to create mass killing zones with turrets. I need more A9 experience to see if this has changed. It's a personal preference though.

Seeing as how I'm playing on a freezing tundra map, drop pod attacks would be the worst, because the attackers have less time to succumb to the elements. Hypothermia seems to be the big killer, not turrets. :)

I don't actually think I've seen a drop pods attack since I started this one, though.

Sieges.  I've had to build everything underneath mountains since Alpha 9 because of the sieges.  They annihilate me otherwise, especially since they last indefinitely.

Drop pods are second with their "oh crap" moments, but that's their entire point.  I don't think they're unreasonable.

Sieges because of incendiary ammo and the increased accuracy (does skill come into play when firing mortars?).

But drop pods can be pretty tough too if much of my base is outside. But they should probably be pretty hard. Does the trade beacon trick really work though? :o

Raids by tribes can also be pretty tough to deal with if I haven't made a killbox of some sort where I've herded them into range since their bows outrange turrets and most weapons that aren't rifles. Have happened a few times that my sniper got counter-sniped by like half a dozen archers :P
I should probably try building sniper's nests further back from the main line when they come.

Sieges - as noted, they seem to really drag on before they switch to the assault. Maybe increase accuracy, prioritize targeting defenses/crops/pawns/structures (in that order), but put a (lower) hard limit on the number of shells. That way they are primarily about destroying your front lines or means of production before storming.

Excluding the scale of raids (month 1 versus month 12), I personally think sieges are the hardest, but they very well should be. However, the whole concept of re-supply bothers me. I wouldn't really mind the ability for them to indefinitely re-supply if I had a chance to disrupt that supply in some way.

That way, I could go after their supply instead of them ... leaving these options to achieve success versus sieges.

1) Send attack party to overtake siege base. (quickest but riskiest)
2) Send snipers to pick off / lure one by one. (slow but sometimes effective and keeping everyone health)
3) Setup my own mortars and try to bombard them until they charge my base. (slow sometimes, fast sometimes ... depends how lucky you get since i don't think mortar fire bases accuracy off of shooting skill)
4) Possibly go attack a supply caravan / drop ship (away from their base) (less guards), so they don't have indefinite siege ability.

Seeing as though I could always see myself not being able to effectively do #1-3 for various reasons, #4 would always give an additional option.

Depends on where your pants are if the attack starts ^^ In Winter, at Night, on early stage without enough energy and your best shooter is sick, a normal raid can be bad.

The most stress so far I had from a siege with caused my whole city being in flames.

The most "pain in the ass" was a ancient spaceshipwreckage with a high Psy-Threat level-thing, and a Centipede as Guard. Everyone was in really bad mood, the centipede with his Minigun was much more I could handle at this time. But it was Randy Random and very early ingame. Had to Order help from another Village to clear this thing ^^

QuoteThe most "pain in the ass" was a ancient spaceshipwreckage with a high Psy-Threat level-thing, and a Centipede as Guard. Everyone was in really bad mood, the centipede with his Minigun was much more I could handle at this time.

While sieges end me prematurely more often, I agree that having all my colonists go psycho due to a shipwreck is very annoying.

Quote from: Tynan on February 23, 2015, 12:52:23 AM

Quote from: Eleazar on February 23, 2015, 12:20:14 AM
I'm not the most experienced.  I've gotten my people off the planet twice, both times in less than 3 years, on 100% and 60% difficulty.

And the hardest type, in my experience, is where they drop out of the sky on your doorstep.  There's no time to prepare, some of your people may be out in the field, and unless you have everything underground, chances are they are inside some or most of your defenses.

Would this be Alpha 9 you're talking about?

No, alpha 8.

I hadn't noticed changes to any of these things in the changlog.

Ugh, drop pods. Simply since they always seem to land directly on my colonists and manage to incapacitate or kill some of them immediately. Last colony I lost three out of six colonists to one drop attack that landed right on top of them.

For me it's drop pods. Not even close.

Setup-then-attacks are by far the easiest for obvious reasons.

Immediate attacks are fine, you can see them coming even if you don't have time to repair. You know in advance both how many there are, where they're coming from and what they're armed with. Plus if your base is well designed they'll still have to go through the areas you WANT them to go through to get to your squishy bits.

Sieges are a mixed bag for me. IF I have sniper rifles and guys capable of taking the fight to them, they're pretty standard. However if I don't, or I don't have enough rifles, then they can be pretty tricky, especially if they have incendiary rounds.

But drop pods are by far the most difficult. They drop anywhere they damn well please, so you can't prepare a defence in advance (other than getting everything inside a mountain), and you don't know what's coming until it's too late.

Not saying they necessarily need to be balanced, as they're not unfairly difficult, just by far the *most* difficult for me personally.

I'd append that by saying that *anything* is made harder if it's got incendiary weapons, even just a molotov.

Ive had good luck with putting my primary trade beacon inside a killbox to deal with the drop pods so they are less of a concern now.  Sieges are my biggest concern now but if i have snipers then not so much. 

Now, mecha raids have always been a big problem for me.  its been a while but they always seem to steamroll over my turrets and my people never seem up to the task.

Id like a direct fire cannon that uses shells.  Cant shoot over things but causes massive damage with an explosion.  That would just be cool.  Slow tracking so that moving infantry would avoid it for the most part, but slow moving centipedes would get pasted.

I voted Drop Pods but in all honesty its Crashed Ship Part.

1) crashed ship part
Highest threat because you need thinfoil-helmets or a really happy colony to be able to prepare for it.
Also the bigger the map the bigger the threat, i had it sometimes land so far from me that it took ages to build the defense there and sometimes they would break before i could even start attacking.

2) drop pods
once you figure out that they tend to land near the trade beacon it gets easier but they still can catch you offguard with half the colonists in the open or worse between them.
I had only Mechanoids drop on my in A9 but from what i have seen so far i would bet that half melee with shields and half ranged would be the most effective aside from Mecha with rockets.

3) fast attack
can only catch you off guard in the early game, later at worst one or two of your colonists have to outrun them.

4) siege
Easiest of them all if you have one decent shot with a sniper rifle, i have taken out sieges of 20+ with one sniper.
Also you get the most resources from this one, as you get often 20-40 meals and two hundred or more steel in addition to all the equip.
And shells sell for a decent buck.

Sieges, but only the ones loaded with lots of snipers (the melee ones are hilarious. Like pulling mobs in an MMO). Anything else is easy to lure into a killbox, including drop pods... and the only thing that has a snowball's chance in hell of overwhelming a proper killbox is dozens of centipedes.

So #2 would be any attack with more than 10 centipedes. Nothing else sponges bullets well enough to return a significant volume of fire (though mods can change that. Integrate an RPG, and pirates can do serious damage in very little time... no need for volume).
Ooh, actually... a crashed ship part late in the game that spawns a ton of centipedes can take months to take down with snipers, though usually I can trick them into letting me potshot the part itself to death long before the last centipede goes down.

Incendiary sieges specifically. I had a colony of about 14 pawns and I felt like I had to devote all my pawns to firefighting & sickbay. I was left with the impression that I have to deal with an incendiary siege immediately, otherwise I'll be stuck in a perpetual cycle of sickbay & firefighting. The only other option imo is building everything deep into a mountain, and that isn't always an option depending on the location.

I've found it's a tie between mechs dropping right on top of you (the way I base I'm a mountain tunneler so my supply cash is just outside my door..my only door and just inside my perimeter defenses.)

Or the sieges... as those shells as mentioned above with my layout.. will more often than not threaten my stockpile of wealth and exportable goods.

It should be mentioned for A9 I started using that added turrets mod which I would think makes it easier for me.. more in my favor.. yet those two raids still hurt and threaten to end my existence even then.

Also I've been playing on Random Randy at the setting below challenge. The name escapes me right now.

Big scyther raids and tribal raids. I'd prefer fighting 5 centipedes at the same time than 5 scythers, I don't even try to hold the defenses against them if I see more than 3. They are the real colony killers for me.

I suposse it depends on different base designs. I build mostly in the open and avoid creating killboxes. I use only 2-4 turrets to cover the whole base. For me sieges are the easiest, they do more damage than the others but they usually leave more resources than they destroy.

Panty?

I've adjusted the balance a bit in Alpha9e so this poll is no longer needed for now. Thanks all for voting.

In 0.9.727, I got beseiged and it came at a horrible timing when everyone was tired and hungry.

I sent in a few survival rifle "snipers" (can't afford or even seen the option to buy a sniper yet) to pick a few off while the rest waited at the gates to defend if they decided to attack.

They never attacked. One of my "snipers" had worse cover and got killed in 3 hits. And I had to send everyone back to eat and rest.

After they rested/ate, I did a full-on attack giving my "snipers" support with more bullets even if it was just as risky and as I was rushing up there with 100% of my forces, a random mortar hit the EDGE of my outdoor-indoor growing zone made out of steel (didn't realize it had 20% flammibility).

I sent one guy back assuming he could handle it.

Long story short, I cleared out the besiegers, every one of my colonists had burns, half of one grow zone completely burned down, the other 2 died from me "smartly" not putting doors between to heat them all simultaneously because it was 800F by the time everyone came to fight the fire and I had to deconstruct the door to let the heat out and to combat the RAGING fire that was starting to spread into the second outdoor-indoor grow zone.

So, yeah, beseiges are massively harder than other raids considering they stick around areas I haven't properly setup to give me an advantage and the fire can hit INDOORS now, so lots of things can catch fire while your soldiers are out fighting.

Luckily, I had a decent enough food reserve, but everyone was having to eat raw food from my cook not being able to keep up (went from 20 reserve meals to 50 now to fix that).

I do miss my 90% grown full grow zone of devilstrand though... that was the worst.

Quote from: tommytom on February 23, 2015, 08:11:19 PM
In 0.9.727, I got beseiged and it came at a horrible timing when everyone was tired and hungry.

I sent in a few survival rifle "snipers" (can't afford or even seen the option to buy a sniper yet) to pick a few off while the rest waited at the gates to defend if they decided to attack.

They never attacked. One of my "snipers" had worse cover and got killed in 3 hits. And I had to send everyone back to eat and rest.

After they rested/ate, I did a full-on attack giving my "snipers" support with more bullets even if it was just as risky and as I was rushing up there with 100% of my forces, a random mortar hit the EDGE of my outdoor-indoor growing zone made out of steel (didn't realize it had 20% flammibility).

I sent one guy back assuming he could handle it.

Long story short, I cleared out the besiegers, every one of my colonists had burns, half of one grow zone completely burned down, the other 2 died from me "smartly" not putting doors between to heat them all simultaneously because it was 800F by the time everyone came to fight the fire and I had to deconstruct the door to let the heat out and to combat the RAGING fire that was starting to spread into the second outdoor-indoor grow zone.

So, yeah, beseiges are massively harder than other raids considering they stick around areas I haven't properly setup to give me an advantage and the fire can hit INDOORS now, so lots of things can catch fire while your soldiers are out fighting.

Luckily, I had a decent enough food reserve, but everyone was having to eat raw food from my cook not being able to keep up (went from 20 reserve meals to 50 now to fix that).

I do miss my 90% grown full grow zone of devilstrand though... that was the worst.

That sounds like quite a story!

I'm a little late to the party, but I have to say that mechanoid attacks are the hardest to deal with specifically. Drop attacks are already pretty rough with people, but it's only made worse when it's beefy, deadly mechanoids.

Quote from: Eleazar on February 23, 2015, 12:20:14 AM
I'm not the most experienced.  I've gotten my people off the planet twice, both times in less than 3 years, on 100% and 60% difficulty.

And the hardest type, in my experience, is where they drop out of the sky on your doorstep.  There's no time to prepare, some of your people may be out in the field, and unless you have everything underground, chances are they are inside some or most of your defenses.

I agree the drop pod thing is the worst.
They sometimes pop PAST your turret defenses. And they kill one of your colonists before you can get the rest of them there. But I think it's pretty normal and that it shouldn't be rebalanced.
But I think that the mechs are the worst in the middle of your base as zesty said cause they take forever to kill and they just shoot everyone before you can prepare.

Seiges, ehhh...I've only had one but it was so easy.
I just threw my people over there and it was an easy battle.
I suggest the raiders having like a 1:3 porportion turret to mortar (ex: 1 improvise turret=3 mortar) to make it a little harder because it's too easy for the seige raid.

For the seige they set up WAAAY on the other side of the map on the largest large mode. I doubt they could even hit me and I was inside a mountain anyways. I got my people behind an abandoned building and it was just far too easy. The raiders should have better defenses instead of just...sandbags.

Quote from: MrSurvivor on February 23, 2015, 11:40:43 PM
I suggest the raiders having like a 1:3 porportion turret to mortar (ex: 1 improvise turret=3 mortar) to make it a little harder because it's too easy for the seige raid.

I like the spirit of this idea: make sieges more intense, but briefer. This could be done by limiting total ammo to 2-3 volleys, but have 6-12 rounds per volley.

Another possibility:
* Some sieges only target crops and power, and go on for a long time - forcing you out to attack them.
* Other sieges only target outer walls and turrets until enough are destroyed and then attack.
* Mortar attacks on mountains have a chance of causing a 3x3 square to collapse, similar to when supporting walls are removed. Mountain still remains overhead when the rubble is cleared.

(havent gotton that far in Alpha 9 yet so not sure if its still the same)
but For me I would say Sieges as I Try to have a good fortified base, I try not to have any casuties so attacking them seems dangerous. With them also having sniper rifles and shooting back, and since snipers where alittle powerful, they tend to insta killed them or take a limb off when one of my colonist got hit.

Sieges are really hard now with the improved mortars.  I had my guys sneak out and steal their food while they were sleeping, but they had too much.  Then I figured I'll steal their shells.  As soon as I took one stack out of their camp, another stack would "drop pod" down.  I did this 5 times, until they woke up.  I ran all the way back.  They are still out there nuking my colony, and at 3x my population, my only chance are the defensive turrets.

Quote from: TimTumm on February 24, 2015, 02:00:24 PM
Sieges are really hard now with the improved mortars.  I had my guys sneak out and steal their food while they were sleeping, but they had too much.  Then I figured I'll steal their shells.  As soon as I took one stack out of their camp, another stack would "drop pod" down.  I did this 5 times, until they woke up.  I ran all the way back.  They are still out there nuking my colony, and at 3x my population, my only chance are the defensive turrets.

That's hilarious! I am amazed of the things people come up with when they have the balls to try it.

Also, I'd consider that an exploit. The re-supplies are meant to keep the beseigers supplied so they don't starve out or run out of ammo. They are now meant to stay put and shell you until you attack them.

Quote from: tommytom on February 24, 2015, 05:18:27 PM

Quote from: TimTumm on February 24, 2015, 02:00:24 PM
Sieges are really hard now with the improved mortars.  I had my guys sneak out and steal their food while they were sleeping, but they had too much.  Then I figured I'll steal their shells.  As soon as I took one stack out of their camp, another stack would "drop pod" down.  I did this 5 times, until they woke up.  I ran all the way back.  They are still out there nuking my colony, and at 3x my population, my only chance are the defensive turrets.

That's hilarious! I am amazed of the things people come up with when they have the balls to try it.

Also, I'd consider that an exploit. The re-supplies are meant to keep the beseigers supplied so they don't starve out or run out of ammo. They are now meant to stay put and shell you until you attack them.

That is funny. I wonder, when they are asleep, can you come over and claim their mortars? That would be definitely funny.

I would say drives are the easiest attack to weather. They a lowish in number and they have to build the motar before they can attack. A single colonist can go out and shoot the motars while they are being built the. Then it just turns into a stage and attack except with less people.

I've only had one drop pod attack so far, I lost a generator and two turrets in the middle of the night but didn't take any casualties. I have the most fun with raids that cause property damage but don't get my peeps killed, so those are fun.

Sieges are the worst because they force you take take losses regardless. Dealing with them basically boils down to how much infrastructure damage you're willing to take versus the kind of a force you can muster at the current moment.

Also, they're bugged. I had a siege come in pretty close to my base. When my force got to the siegers they sat around soaking damage without reacting for a short amount of time. It wasn't until the steel/food drop pods landed and the sandbag outlines popped up for a split second that they cancelled construction and rushed the group.

Everything is way balanced on the 9e, the defenses and killboxes need some extra work, sieges are harder to deal. Tribe's people really do damage now, they don't just drop dead.

But still, the worst type of raid for me is when a crashed ship part lands on my base.

Quote from: StorymasterQ on February 24, 2015, 08:02:51 PM
Sieges are really hard now with the improved mortars.  I had my guys sneak out and steal their food while they were sleeping, but they had too much.  Then I figured I'll steal their shells.  As soon as I took one stack out of their camp, another stack would "drop pod" down.  I did this 5 times, until they woke up.

I fought a huge siege just like this. My 6 guys against their about a dozen-plus. It went on for 5 months. At night, I would sneak in and steal their ammo. Then I would fire their ammo back at them from my own mortars during the day. It went on and on. They weren't causing much damage because I my base was built into a mountain, but it was impossible to get outside to do anything. Random visiting parties would show up, run into this siege, and get slaughtered. It was impossible to farm. We had no food. We had to steal theirs. Finally, after 5 months of fighting, my mortar managed to hit theirs and their entire camp exploded, killing many and routing the rest.

Nice (but painful) strategy.  The way mine ended was funny/lucky.  I was pretty resigned to losing, and having to restart, but then these visitors walked by.  The siegers killed them and "shocked" one.  I was like, too bad man, I can't rescue you.  After a bit, they decided to kidnap the visitor, and leave! 

That happens a lot. My base is built into a mountain near the edge of the map, so visitors have a long walk. There's only one route in, and as a result, any attackers always end up blocking that route. Nearly a dozen times, visitors have showed up and gotten kidnapped by the attackers, who give up and leave. The siege group, however, set up camp in their own nook, so visitors tended to be more scarce there and tended to expose themselves to fire from the entire camp at once and die, so apparently they were never worth kidnapping. Sieges have gotten briefer since then, now that I have about 4000 artillery shells and a counter-battery of 10 mortars. I still only have 6 guys, so I can choose between my 5 regular or 5 incendiary, depending on weather. This map is rather flammable, really. If it's not raining, something is on fire. If it is raining, something is probably still on fire.

The worst kind of attack is before I was able to set up any turrets. That sometimes happens even on the easier difficulties. I once started without weapons - I guess thats my own fault because it was because of a mod - and had an attack before any defences were built.