In my world i find that once you get 5+ turrets or make too many dead fall traps then 100% of the raids are sappers. at this point i don't even bother with traps and defensive structures because sappers will always just go around. i feel it takes all my planning for the future and strategy and throws it into the nearest incinerator never to be seen again. now my 6 combat capable colonists have to fend off 15+ fully equipped sappers and i don even get the help of my traps. now my dead fall trap pit is only used against rabid animals. i want to see more regular raids because so many sappers just drains the fun out of the game in my opinion. even though it can push more story so can regular raids. even if i have a kill box its only because 60 percent of my colony is frail or cant even use a weapon. if there are going to be sappers every raid then i would at least like to see more weapons and armour's if that's the only thing you can use to prevent total death.
please comment your suggestions, possible alternatives and own stories with sappers. i would like to see if people agree or disagree with this. the least that could happen is sappers being turned down to a 50% chance instead of every raid being sappers.
Quote from: quxzcover on September 12, 2015, 04:48:32 PM
In my world i find that once you get 5+ turrets or make too many dead fall traps then 100% of the raids are sappers.
I think you're exaggerating. I have defensive positions all over the map (no
real killboxes however) and I still get many sieges and regular raids.
Sappers are annoying to say the least! Especially when your only real "defense" is the fact you've built into a valley and the sappers go around putting holes in walls for no reason!>.< My best strategy for dealing with them right now is to treat them like siegers and attack while they're digging. I try to create multiple exit points from the colony in every feasible direction so my colonists can reach the perimeter before the enemy can, ideally so they can get into an ambush position near wherever the sappers are heading. Once the sappers are a tile or two in, I send in the squad to deal with the guards. From there it's more or less shooting fish in a barrel because the actual sappers won't stop digging to help their comrades fight you, they only seem to attack when they are injured.
As for the frequency at which the game is throwing sappers at you, I thought I noticed a lot more sapper raids coming through when my colonies only had one way in or out. Whether or not that was real or imagined, I can't say!
This is the entire point of sappers - to punish mountain bases that rely on a single point of entry as defense. They aren't that hard to deal with - snipe them like sieges.
Rather than change their frequency for all players, it makes more sense to add a custom story teller that makes it for you you (any player) to disable them or change their likelihood (or someone else could even boost it). I find the raid type distribution pretty reasonable at the moment.
I find this interesting.
1) i do only have 1 point of entrance and that might be why.
2) with siegers i wait till they all go to sleep then i send in my melee people and attack them.
3) i have one entrance but its a room filled with 600 granite deadfall traps give or take a hundred and its a cure to animals. that it. tribal kill my solar power and crops and sappers happen every other day soooo ya.
4)i dont think people with one entrance bases should be punished for that. i do it so i can keep track of all my things alot easier and be able to shut things down and keep them in quickly without having to worry about more exits.
if anyone has suggestions about new types of raids and/or alternatives to sappers please comment.
Quote from: quxzcover on September 13, 2015, 01:19:18 AM
4)i dont think people with one entrance bases should be punished for that. i do it so i can keep track of all my things alot easier and be able to shut things down and keep them in quickly without having to worry about more exits.
Play on free play or base builder difficulty/story teller if you don't want the game to challenge your base design. Or form a sniper team to take care of the sappers. Again, given your base design this is working
exactly as intended.
You should instead be asking how to defend your self in a more versatile way, not asking for the game to be changed to fit your play style (when those options exist already!).
It's random. In last colony that I played until 5503, I only had 3 sapper raids.
The thing that might affect it is who you're at war with. Don't make peace with tribals, you'll see more raids from tribals. They don't have sappers.
The sappers always take the same routes (depending on which one of a handful of spawn points they always come from on a map is used) to bypass your fixed turret defences, and can't 'see' deadfall traps. I've never had the slightest problem with seeing where attacks like to try and go, then covering it in deadfall traps. The next time, their digger goes down (horribly) and the rest just attack my defences like normal.
If you can find the sapper amongst the raid group (usually has a grenade) use a psychic lance on him, his comrads then claim his blood for the Void Gods. Without a sapper they attack like a normal raid.
Am I the only one who thinks it's fun to let them get inside and ambush them there?
Probably, I just like to have them panic in my ventilation system. Turns out that if I close the ventilation ports(MD2 extendable walls) it gets mighty warm in there.
Quote from: chaotix14 on September 13, 2015, 12:01:51 PM
Probably, I just like to have them panic in my ventilation system. Turns out that if I close the ventilation ports(MD2 extendable walls) it gets mighty warm in there.
That's the kind of thing you see in a James Bond movie- I love it.
My last sapper raid went pretty hilariously. I've been experimenting with a completely turret-less defense that focuses on abusing grenades and shotguns. (Long sandbag filled serpentine, with doors on each corner that my grenadiers can use to lob grenades at incoming raiders) The poor bastards tried to blast their way through the serpentine (and killed one of my dogs that got a bit close despite my animal area being on) and ended up wiping out a good deal of their buddies with friendly fire.
I even got a gal with a bionic arm, sanqguine, and hard worker in my prison out of it. :D
Quote from: akiceabear on September 13, 2015, 01:27:20 AM
Quote from: quxzcover on September 13, 2015, 01:19:18 AM
4)i dont think people with one entrance bases should be punished for that. i do it so i can keep track of all my things alot easier and be able to shut things down and keep them in quickly without having to worry about more exits.
Play on free play or base builder difficulty/story teller if you don't want the game to challenge your base design. Or form a sniper team to take care of the sappers. Again, given your base design this is working exactly as intended.
You should instead be asking how to defend your self in a more versatile way, not asking for the game to be changed to fit your play style (when those options exist already!).
Translation: Stop Having Fun.
Sappers have been an obnoxious, overpowered pain in the ass since moment one in this game.
They were a bad idea when he came up with them and they're a bad idea now. People should not be PUNISHED for having a particular play style. Especially since everything else about the game, including the difficulty of getting colonists and the massive, overpowered enemy attack forces all but requires it if you don't want to die or lose half your people in your first attack.
Sappers are decent at destroying your structures, but they're not good at identifying what's the actual base. They should prioritize stuff like batteries, food storage, hydroponics, hospital, maybe prison. They should hit where it hurts. And they're utterly confused by an outer perimeter wall.
Quote from: Psyckosama on September 14, 2015, 05:20:52 PM
Translation: Stop Having Fun.
Sappers have been an obnoxious, overpowered pain in the ass since moment one in this game.
They were a bad idea when he came up with them and they're a bad idea now. People should not be PUNISHED for having a particular play style. (snip)
Translation:
Please stop making the AI even remotely competent. I want to keep using the same tactic over and over every game because the AI is so terrible it can not cope with the most basic of defences.
In fact, I'd prefer it if you just have them walk up to my turrets and stand there until shot to death without any input from me.
I want to feel good about myself for playing on the highest difficulty, but get really upset when this takes any effort whatsoever. I SHOULDN'T BE PUNISHED FOR MY PLAYSTYLE.
Oh, oh! Sappers that carry extra weapons and prioritize the prison! That'd be awesome if they got there and armed the escapees to fight on their side.
Quote from: Britnoth on September 14, 2015, 05:39:23 PM
Quote from: Psyckosama on September 14, 2015, 05:20:52 PM
Translation: Stop Having Fun.
Sappers have been an obnoxious, overpowered pain in the ass since moment one in this game.
They were a bad idea when he came up with them and they're a bad idea now. People should not be PUNISHED for having a particular play style. (snip)
Translation:
Please stop making the AI even remotely competent. I want to keep using the same tactic over and over every game because the AI is so terrible it can not cope with the most basic of defences.
In fact, I'd prefer it if you just have them walk up to my turrets and stand there until shot to death without any input from me.
I want to feel good about myself for playing on the highest difficulty, but get really upset when this takes any effort whatsoever. I SHOULDN'T BE PUNISHED FOR MY PLAYSTYLE.
Bite me, troll.
Competent AI is one thing. Overpowered AI that can laugh off losses between raids because their colonies are ultimately nothing more than a dot on the map, and is easily avoid all defenses while my damned near impossible to replace colonists are always out-numbered and out-gunned by at least 2-1 is another thing entirely.
Psyckosama - if you read the full thread you'll have seen that I earlier suggested a more reasonable solution for everyone is a custom story teller which reduces or disables sappers. You seem to think that just because you dislike how this feature impacts your play style that it should be disabled for everyone, including those that find it challenging and fun - and then insulting us for thinking that, too.
In general you should try to propose solutions which punish the least number of players while addressing the complaint. I think my two suggestions do that, while yours just incites a flame war.
Psyckosama, dude. Sappers aren't much better than regular raids. Plan around them and they become almost no threat. I put extra last ditch effort defenses on the inside of my base and those work just fine against Sappers.
Hmm, what would someone consider as a "Competent AI"?
Just to see opinions.
Quote from: A Friend on September 14, 2015, 09:05:01 PM
Hmm, what would someone consider as a "Competent AI"?
Just to see opinions.
Is strategic, can plan the best spot to attack from, and would attack on multiple fronts, and knows his enemy, acknowledges what turrets do, which colonists have the strongest weapons, which are weak to meele ( sniper rifle ) etc.
So far I had only one sapper event.
But they went somewhere, where my base wasn't.
Until I got a message, new area revealed!
Those peeps opened up a ancient room and a few mechs said peka-boo and destroyed them and I had the best fun of cleaning up the stragglers.
One of those walls of that ancient room, did indeed end up very close to my main hall. It was indeed the shortest distance into my base.
My turretless defense really confused the last sapper attack I had. To the point where they ended up killing two of their allies with their own grenades. I was laughing pretty hard while my colonists chucked grenades back at them.
Out of anything, they need even better AI and some more varied soldiers. Just construct a long power line in front of your base and watch as raids get completely confused as to what they're supposed to be attacking- Turning them into bite-sized fun.
Quote from: Thorin on September 15, 2015, 05:36:41 AM
So far I had only one sapper event.
But they went somewhere, where my base wasn't.
Until I got a message, new area revealed!
Those peeps opened up a ancient room and a few mechs said peka-boo and destroyed them and I had the best fun of cleaning up the stragglers.
One of those walls of that ancient room, did indeed end up very close to my main hall. It was indeed the shortest distance into my base.
That is hilarious :D
Quote from: A Friend on September 14, 2015, 09:05:01 PM
Hmm, what would someone consider as a "Competent AI"?
Just to see opinions.
Raiders that are actually geared for their tactics. That would greatly improve raids without even any actual AI changes.
No more siege parties of only half a dozen guys equiped with only pistols. They should all have survival/sniper/assault rifles. Build more sandbags. Maybe build a small room and keep their shells + food inside so you cant set them off in a chain reaction killing half their guys because they are just lying on the floor.
Only raids that paradrop inside your base should be melee only. A personal shield is not enough protection to reach anyone vs massed gunfire, let alone past a bunch of turrets.
No more brawlers with ranged weapons. No careful shooters with grenades, etc. No more awful shivs that do less damage than punching.
Raiders that do not start crossing 10+ squares of sandbags or rubble and being unable to fight back while they get massacred by your fire. If they cannot stop and fire within 5 squares of their location, they should start destroying the sandbags or walls to walk around the obvious killing zone. Or just let people shoot while standing on such cover, but with no cover bonus.
Mechanoids that spawn immediately from ship parts, instead of waiting for you to shoot it to pop them out. Walling ship parts in for various cheesy tactics is just ridiculous.
Hostiles that are damaged should at least attempt to seek the source out, not just stand there getting plinked from long range by a sniper for several days.
Hostiles should not shoot at enemies in personal shields unless they are the only target with a reasonable chance to be hit. Multiply the chance to hit by ~25% for the purpose of choosing the best target vs colonists with shields, to represent them being much harder to hurt.
All enemy types need to have a target that fits their fluff. Natives could just burn your metal structures like solar panels and wind turbines, and steal food or steel (things they lack or cant produce themselves, ie steel to make tools).
While pirates should look to grab prisoners as a matter of urgency: when one colonist is KOed, a single pirate should grab them and start running for the exit, while the rest of the pirates continue their attack to provide cover for the kidnapping. Right now, stopping their attack entirely just to try to kidnap 1 person is actually a huge relief if the battle is going badly.
Mechanoids need to keep scythers from charging forward leaving their centipedes far behind. This just results in 2 easy battles instead of 1 tougher one. Have the scythers stay close to the centipedes providing accurate long range fire (their strength) not leading the charge and getting killed by a few turrets (their weakness). Centipedes seem to lack accuracy, so they should stick to the inferno cannons or perhaps a new heavy grenade launcher, and attempt to target any concentrations of enemy not just the nearest turret.
Overall, you can make the raids a whole lot more dangerous just by making them use the tools they already have, not giving them new ones. Natives have bows that out range your turrets, but often half their guys have crappy stone clubs. Those charge forward into turret fire and die, causing the entire raid to flee before the dangerous bow users have gotten more than a few volleys into the air. Pirates do the same thing; fail to make use of their powerful ranged weapons because half their guys run lemming like to their deaths and then the whole raid makes a run for it.
Ideally:
The whole force fights as a unit. If some of your guys are in range, let them do their thing. Don't get sucked into trying to reach people 50 squares away to stab them with your crappy knife past all those turrets. Stay close to your sniper rifle guys and do your job: protect them from any melee or shorter ranged guys getting close enough to hurt them.
Trying to melee a guy because he is 20 squares away trying to shoot your sniper with his charge rifle is a good plan, running 50+ though massed enemy fire to stab someone with just a pistol is not.
Update: Most recent sapper attack decided to go in through my bunker emplacement rather than through my serpentine. They blasted through three slate doors, before meeting my five defensive grenadiers, a shotgun, and a minigun to the face. In the end I had one pawn lightly injured by a charge rifle and one who had been winged by a heavy SMG. Neither of whom had lasting injuries.
Properly managed pawns in defense are far, far superior to turrets, and sappers are just as vulnerable to proper explosive management as anyone else.
Sappers are annoying as hell yes. but the easiest way around that is use a insanity lance on the grenadiers and they go straight to your door instead of sapping.
That seems like an incredibly bad waste of resources. Especially when sappers aren't even that bad. Seriously, just plan some inner defensive placements inside your base for when the sappers come so your guys have defensive positions to fight from. It works wonders.
The game only spams sappers if you don't give it any other choice. If you lock yourself into a mountain with only one way in or out and a massive killbox, the AI will (it seems) trigger more events that will actually stress you a bit. If you just stretch your base out a bit and keep the important bits inside the mountain, you should see less sappers.
I usually try and connect and surround my geothermal generators with walls, this also seems to help as the AI can find something to attack besides your main base, and this can often create fun little skirmishes where you plink away at groups sabotaging your power stations and try to draw them into your main defenses.
Sappers, siegers, they're all boring and unchallenging as hell. Snipers kill both extremely easily. Siegers can be slaughtered in their sleep easily enough. The sapper AI is often so stupid that they run past my fully armed pawns to mine a piece rock deep inside my base. Also, if the sappers do get in my base, all they've done is dug their own graves by walking into a maze of choke points. Seriously, I find tribals and manhunter packs way more challenging because they at least have the potential to overrun my defenses. :P As it is, mechanoids are the only serious threat in this game. Even then snipers deal with them 90% of the time.
I still use a killbox of deadfall and honestly now that ive explored my options the only challenge is tribals.
Sappers: drive grenadier insane with lance, makes them act like normal raiders.
Raiders: runs through deadfall.
Manhunter: they kill themselves all on deadfall, so free meat.
Shippart: I was lying, this is also insanely hard to beat.
Siege: Kill them in there sleep.
Etc,everything runs through deadfall,but with tribals they all take the same path so only the first 10 die, then there about 40 more to slowly kill all turrets.
Sappers are nowhere near as annoying as a raid drop directly into my front yard - especially when it's mechanoids. With sappers you just have to treat them as a siege and send your troops out to meet them. The actual sieges are more annoying because I play on a slightly larger map and they usually have their sandbags built by the time anyone gets close.
Ship parts I actually find pretty easy to deal with. There's no time limit on when to crack them so I just have my colonists build fortifications and plop down some turrets, then I draft them all and someone pings the ship part while the rest wait behind cover.
Ship part is easy to deal with if there aren't too many sythers. And you know how to micro your colonists.
Basically play tag with different colonists, and the Mechs will destroy their own ship part for you. Then you have to run around and avoid minigun fire. You could during this time set up a kill box, then send the mechs on through. Though if the ship part lands inside an important colony structure then it'll be much harder to deal with.
Aside from more and more turrets I don't really have a way to deal with drop pods ATM, I suppose covering the entire place with roofing with mines layed on top of any unroofed areas.
I got 'a' solution. Can't say you will like it, but it could be the next thing.
It is regards to replacing the strategy with vehicles, scouts and a single use RPG. I think the 'sappers' should become a digger infiltrator class, seperate from raider parties, but act more like thieves, whom sneak into your base, incapacitate people, and... yeah... not sure where from there.
https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=16510.0
Quote from: Britnoth on September 15, 2015, 09:25:42 PM
Quote from: A Friend on September 14, 2015, 09:05:01 PM
Hmm, what would someone consider as a "Competent AI"?
Just to see opinions.
Raiders that are actually geared for their tactics. That would greatly improve raids without even any actual AI changes.
No more siege parties of only half a dozen guys equiped with only pistols. They should all have survival/sniper/assault rifles. Build more sandbags. Maybe build a small room and keep their shells + food inside so you cant set them off in a chain reaction killing half their guys because they are just lying on the floor.
Only raids that paradrop inside your base should be melee only. A personal shield is not enough protection to reach anyone vs massed gunfire, let alone past a bunch of turrets.
No more brawlers with ranged weapons. No careful shooters with grenades, etc. No more awful shivs that do less damage than punching.
Raiders that do not start crossing 10+ squares of sandbags or rubble and being unable to fight back while they get massacred by your fire. If they cannot stop and fire within 5 squares of their location, they should start destroying the sandbags or walls to walk around the obvious killing zone. Or just let people shoot while standing on such cover, but with no cover bonus.
Mechanoids that spawn immediately from ship parts, instead of waiting for you to shoot it to pop them out. Walling ship parts in for various cheesy tactics is just ridiculous.
Hostiles that are damaged should at least attempt to seek the source out, not just stand there getting plinked from long range by a sniper for several days.
Hostiles should not shoot at enemies in personal shields unless they are the only target with a reasonable chance to be hit. Multiply the chance to hit by ~25% for the purpose of choosing the best target vs colonists with shields, to represent them being much harder to hurt.
All enemy types need to have a target that fits their fluff. Natives could just burn your metal structures like solar panels and wind turbines, and steal food or steel (things they lack or cant produce themselves, ie steel to make tools).
While pirates should look to grab prisoners as a matter of urgency: when one colonist is KOed, a single pirate should grab them and start running for the exit, while the rest of the pirates continue their attack to provide cover for the kidnapping. Right now, stopping their attack entirely just to try to kidnap 1 person is actually a huge relief if the battle is going badly.
Mechanoids need to keep scythers from charging forward leaving their centipedes far behind. This just results in 2 easy battles instead of 1 tougher one. Have the scythers stay close to the centipedes providing accurate long range fire (their strength) not leading the charge and getting killed by a few turrets (their weakness). Centipedes seem to lack accuracy, so they should stick to the inferno cannons or perhaps a new heavy grenade launcher, and attempt to target any concentrations of enemy not just the nearest turret.
Overall, you can make the raids a whole lot more dangerous just by making them use the tools they already have, not giving them new ones. Natives have bows that out range your turrets, but often half their guys have crappy stone clubs. Those charge forward into turret fire and die, causing the entire raid to flee before the dangerous bow users have gotten more than a few volleys into the air. Pirates do the same thing; fail to make use of their powerful ranged weapons because half their guys run lemming like to their deaths and then the whole raid makes a run for it.
Ideally:
The whole force fights as a unit. If some of your guys are in range, let them do their thing. Don't get sucked into trying to reach people 50 squares away to stab them with your crappy knife past all those turrets. Stay close to your sniper rifle guys and do your job: protect them from any melee or shorter ranged guys getting close enough to hurt them.
Trying to melee a guy because he is 20 squares away trying to shoot your sniper with his charge rifle is a good plan, running 50+ though massed enemy fire to stab someone with just a pistol is not.
^this.. exactly this.
some of his points, i already mentioned ages ago but nobody seems to listen.
the "battle" is the core of rimworld. it's the main draw, since out of the many DF clones out there, rimworld has
THE best RTS battle system currently available. it's a game changer.
however, it lacks certain polish for the AI and need smoother RTS group controls... add multiplayer, z-levels, and better (more stylish) graphics.. and i wouldn't be surprised if rimworld makes it into the list of all time gaming classics..
My biggest dream concerning Rimworld is that one day raiders/weather/events/traders will be controlled by a human in a multiplayer environment where they have the freedom to command the story to other players. There would need to have a rating/opinion system for players of course, even tho communities looking for role-playing would emerge.
In a side note, i don't think co-op would be cool in Rimworld; nor would "competitive". Unless the player that is controlling "god" in the other side is a known friend, probably an "increasing-with-time-point-pool" and a cool-down for the abilities seem necessary to control abusive behavior.
That "competent AI" would wipe out nearly any colony with the first or second tribal raid. If the tribals actually burrowed thru walls to avoid killboxes and kept their melee back by their bowmen, you'd lose. Every time. Bowmen outnumbering your shooters 7 to 1 just loses. because a single bowshot hitting you is really nasty...those arrows hit HARD.
A "smart" tribal raid should win every time. The idea is...they're not smart...they rely on numbers and rushing your defenses. You want effective tribal raids? make the melee people ignore turrets. 50 tribals in a clump aren't going to be taken down easily by massed gunfire...it'll take some explosion usually...which is why people use sacrificial turrets...take that one thing away and reduce the speed penalty on sandbags and chunks and you've buffed tribal raids and forced them to be fought using strategy rather than "put a turret up front surrounded by sandbags so it blows and kills all the melee raiders"
Pirates have to fight in SOME WAY worse than the colonists. The pirate raids are often equal or better in number and armament. Even taking colony defenses and resources into account, lets say you do twice as well as the pirates. Taking 50% casualties every raid isn't sustainable and AGAIN, pirate raids using player tactics will eventually kill any colony. Removing the poor gear should help to reduce this issue. Making pirates attempt to pick up the nearest valuable thing when they flee (say, within 5 squares sideways or backwards of their path off the map) should help reduce the colony wealth impact of better geared pirates, as the most valuable thing will usually be an ally body or good weapon. It fits with the THEME of pirates too - raid for wealth. Scooping up some wealth on the way out is very "pirate." Sieges should have pirates on watch. Any gunshot that hits a pirate will cause all the pirates to wake up 3 seconds later if there is an awake pirate still standing (this way you CAN snipe them off sleeping, but you have to be good/lucky to kill the awake ones before they wake the rest). Sappers are actually fine, or on the weaker side....they still can have stupidity issues where they try to walk all the way into a base before deciding to shoot (dying along the way) - that could stand to be fixed, but the base damage they can cause is scary enough.
You want mechs to be scarier? they should still charge headlong to their death. Just make any mech on the map start moving towards the nearest colonists, shooting any structural objects in their way. This way mechs will just drill holes thru the sides of bases....forget "seeking out sniper fire," they'll NEVER sit around with this...soon as the ship spawns them, they start heading for colonists. Separating them and killing them in 2 easier fights should be the GO-TO tactic for mechs...because if they always head straight for colonists, shooting thru walls (if it would significantly delay them to go around), then thats all you CAN do.
Every threat needs a viable tactic to counter it, changing the game to remove the counters just makes raids a "you lose" button.