It's clear that Tynan has a goal in mind with these changes, specifically for us to fight out in the open mano a mano and forgo base defenses. But I wonder - does anyone really want this? One of my biggest pleasures in this game is designing a well-thought-out base layout that allows me to defend effectively against overwhelming odds. I tend to play with only 5 or 6 colonists, and so even a single stray bullet could be a major setback. Every fight is a battle of attrition, using doors and carefully placed walls to fight from relative safety, maximizing my damage to them and minimizing it to me. It is a game of tactics, and preparation. But if every raid is going to melt through my doors and walls, why would I bother building any of this? Also, what are we supposed to be doing instead? Just standing behind sandbags and hitting fast-forward?
I smell theorycrafting :D but assuming you are correct, I agree. The thrust of this game is keeping your people safe, not FPS twitchkilling all the bad guys.
I kind of support most of it since we have a toggle for auto-build destroyed structures.
The door nerf was long overdue IMO. I can't tell you how many times I ignored a pack of manhunter animals or raiders beating on my stone/plasteel doors in previous versions. Think about how high their hp were... There are some players who refuse to make walls anything other than granite cause of the hp. If something was able to tear it down then something is up with the strategy in most cases. Of course there are times you're outnumbered it wouldn't take long for a door to come down, but you should have backup plans for that. You should be hitting them before they get to it. And Tactics to deal with them while they're knocking it down.
With 1.0, I understand the threats will spread out more aggressively and that you can't be everywhere at once especially with the amount of pawns you prefer to play with. It's okay if your perimeters/structures get destroyed, just focus on minimizing the damage and keeping your pawns alive. Lots of changes were made in this update so gotta adjust. Try new strategies and base layouts if your old ones aren't working.
Quote from: Jibbles on July 03, 2018, 07:45:05 PM
It's okay if your perimeters/structures get destroyed, just focus on minimizing the damage and keeping your pawns alive.
And this is exactly the problem. A lot of changes are about forcing you to use your pawns in direct, close combat, massively nerfing any ways to avoid it. And direct combat in Rimworld is a massive RNGfest.
Quote from: Oblitus on July 03, 2018, 08:11:50 PM
Quote from: Jibbles on July 03, 2018, 07:45:05 PM
It's okay if your perimeters/structures get destroyed, just focus on minimizing the damage and keeping your pawns alive.
And this is exactly the problem. A lot of changes are about forcing you to use your pawns in direct, close combat, massively nerfing any ways to avoid it. And direct combat in Rimworld is a massive RNGfest.
Agreed. In most encounters we are massively outgunned and outmanned - our only defense is our wits and our preparation. If you nerf all of our actual defensive strategies then we are just rolling the dice over and over until we get a 1; game over. This is boring. If anything we should be seeing defensive strategies being buffed. I don't mean killboxes, but things like traps, embrasures and moats should all be in the base game.
I do find it strange how all of the other events in Rimworld are overcome by planning and foresight, but raids are just down to luck?
I apologize that this is theorycrafting and I deliberately did not post in the main 1.0 discussion because of this. I do feel however that communicating such overarching balance issues can't be conveyed in blow-by-blows of individual raids. It's more of a philosophy of how raids fit into the game.
Quote from: Jibbles on July 03, 2018, 07:45:05 PMThe door nerf was long overdue IMO. I can't tell you how many times I ignored a pack of manhunter animals or raiders beating on my stone/plasteel doors in previous versions.
Isn't that the point of walls and doors though? To keep wildlife out? I always considered manhunter packs like any other environmental factor such as toxic fallout or cold snaps. You attack them head-on if you are capable, otherwise you hunker down and pray your stores hold over until the situation improves. If you have an uber killbox then manhunter packs are trivialized, but otherwise they are a real danger, especially in the early year when supplies are already dwindling. If the things are just going to batter down your doors then it boils down to close-quarters combat, which means severe wounds, infections, a wrecked base. And there's nothing you can do to prepare for it!
Quote from: Oblitus on July 03, 2018, 08:11:50 PM
Quote from: Jibbles on July 03, 2018, 07:45:05 PM
It's okay if your perimeters/structures get destroyed, just focus on minimizing the damage and keeping your pawns alive.
And this is exactly the problem. A lot of changes are about forcing you to use your pawns in direct, close combat, massively nerfing any ways to avoid it. And direct combat in Rimworld is a massive RNGfest.
I'm not denying it. I felt more RNG was introduced in my games while playing this unstable version. When I think about the causes it's not the nerfing of doors killboxes etc. Buffing them or not making changes only clouds the flaws in systems that needs to be more solid IMO. So I don't have much to say against those changes. I understand when people get upset over it cause how those type of changes my not gel well with the overall experience (in games current state) and simply not match players standards or expectations. I like to assume that Tynan's end goal isn't about making the game rng-fest as you say, so I try not fret over it.
Quote from: giltirn on July 03, 2018, 09:06:35 PM
Quote from: Jibbles on July 03, 2018, 07:45:05 PMThe door nerf was long overdue IMO. I can't tell you how many times I ignored a pack of manhunter animals or raiders beating on my stone/plasteel doors in previous versions.
Isn't that the point of walls and doors though? To keep wildlife out? I always considered manhunter packs like any other environmental factor such as toxic fallout or cold snaps. You attack them head-on if you are capable, otherwise you hunker down and pray your stores hold over until the situation improves. If you have an uber killbox then manhunter packs are trivialized, but otherwise they are a real danger, especially in the early year when supplies are already dwindling. If the things are just going to batter down your doors then it boils down to close-quarters combat, which means severe wounds, infections, a wrecked base. And there's nothing you can do to prepare for it!
The hp to stone door is high enough to do that. If you build out wood then prepare to get wreck. There is also plasteel. I believe my pawns level up faster in this update, so a pawn with high construction skills can repair faster. Animals who have high dps and agile are indeed a threat, up to you if you're going to face it or wait it out. Or pop in a few shots and wait for them to bleed out. It's pretty rare in my experience not to have control over manhunter packs. (Except when they occur and your pawn is out in the boonies and maybe some during caravan)
Quote from: Jibbles on July 03, 2018, 07:45:05 PM
I kind of support most of it since we have a toggle for auto-build destroyed structures.
The door nerf was long overdue IMO. I can't tell you how many times I ignored a pack of manhunter animals or raiders beating on my stone/plasteel doors in previous versions. Think about how high their hp were... There are some players who refuse to make walls anything other than granite cause of the hp. If something was able to tear it down then something is up with the strategy in most cases. Of course there are times you're outnumbered it wouldn't take long for a door to come down, but you should have backup plans for that. You should be hitting them before they get to it. And Tactics to deal with them while they're knocking it down.
With 1.0, I understand the threats will spread out more aggressively and that you can't be everywhere at once especially with the amount of pawns you prefer to play with. It's okay if your perimeters/structures get destroyed, just focus on minimizing the damage and keeping your pawns alive. Lots of changes were made in this update so gotta adjust. Try new strategies and base layouts if your old ones aren't working.
I'm not sure what mystic "backup plans" you're implying, but the hp nerf won't change the reality here. AI alteration could, same with rules for how quickly doors shut or something. But a flat hp nerf? That's out of touch.
Basebuilding is fine, but the whole door stuff has to stop. It's a senseless strategy that would never work in real life. Enemies would just stand in front of the doors and shoot as soon as there was an opening, but that's not possible in Rimworld. There should be more different ways to defend in general. Trenches in particular should definitely be added. Maybe watchtowers too.
Quote from: Ilya on July 03, 2018, 11:03:28 PM
Basebuilding is fine, but the whole door stuff has to stop. It's a senseless strategy that would never work in real life. Enemies would just stand in front of the doors and shoot as soon as there was an opening, but that's not possible in Rimworld. There should be more different ways to defend in general. Trenches in particular should definitely be added. Maybe watchtowers too.
Certainly, but you don't fix this by reducing door HP, because that doesn't really address the issue.
You fix it with AI patterns like "concentrate those shots onto the door to risk breaching it", or "give weapons warmup times or doors shut times that make firing through doors more consistent" or "enemy melee camps recently opened doors and will step into an open tile if opened again".
Running door micro vs machine pistols is way more dangerous than it is against snipers for example. There's a reason for this, and that reason isn't how much HP the door has.
Quote from: Ilya on July 03, 2018, 11:03:28 PM
Basebuilding is fine, but the whole door stuff has to stop. It's a senseless strategy that would never work in real life. Enemies would just stand in front of the doors and shoot as soon as there was an opening, but that's not possible in Rimworld. There should be more different ways to defend in general. Trenches in particular should definitely be added. Maybe watchtowers too.
I don't know, doors were pretty effective in medieval castles. You'd have your main gate as the major focal point, which the enemy would try to batter down because it would allow a quick influx of many attackers into the castle at once, overwhelming the defenders. There would also be numerous sally ports for the defenders to issue quick counter-attacks and flanking maneuvers. No-one in their right mind would open a door to take a potshot because they could just shoot out of an embrasure or from the crenelations. IMO we should have embrasures in the base game, which would render door-cheese redundant without simultaneously nerfing defense.
Quote from: giltirn on July 03, 2018, 11:15:58 PM
Quote from: Ilya on July 03, 2018, 11:03:28 PM
Basebuilding is fine, but the whole door stuff has to stop. It's a senseless strategy that would never work in real life. Enemies would just stand in front of the doors and shoot as soon as there was an opening, but that's not possible in Rimworld. There should be more different ways to defend in general. Trenches in particular should definitely be added. Maybe watchtowers too.
I don't know, doors were pretty effective in medieval castles. You'd have your main gate as the major focal point, which the enemy would try to batter down because it would allow a quick influx of many attackers into the castle at once, overwhelming the defenders. There would also be numerous sally ports for the defenders to issue quick counter-attacks and flanking maneuvers. No-one in their right mind would open a door to take a potshot because they could just shoot out of an embrasure or from the crenelations. IMO we should have embrasures in the base game, which would render door-cheese redundant without simultaneously nerfing defense.
It makes sense, but unfortunetely it adds a way to avoid danger which is against base game rule: any danger should always be able to wheck you irregardless of preparations.
Quote from: Oblitus on July 04, 2018, 12:13:23 AM
Quote from: giltirn on July 03, 2018, 11:15:58 PM
Quote from: Ilya on July 03, 2018, 11:03:28 PM
Basebuilding is fine, but the whole door stuff has to stop. It's a senseless strategy that would never work in real life. Enemies would just stand in front of the doors and shoot as soon as there was an opening, but that's not possible in Rimworld. There should be more different ways to defend in general. Trenches in particular should definitely be added. Maybe watchtowers too.
I don't know, doors were pretty effective in medieval castles. You'd have your main gate as the major focal point, which the enemy would try to batter down because it would allow a quick influx of many attackers into the castle at once, overwhelming the defenders. There would also be numerous sally ports for the defenders to issue quick counter-attacks and flanking maneuvers. No-one in their right mind would open a door to take a potshot because they could just shoot out of an embrasure or from the crenelations. IMO we should have embrasures in the base game, which would render door-cheese redundant without simultaneously nerfing defense.
It makes sense, but unfortunetely it adds a way to avoid danger which is against base game rule: any danger should always be able to wheck you irregardless of preparations.
Actually, no. That goes against the actual implementation for the overwhelming majority of all events in Rimworld outright.
Events wrecking player regardless of their preparation or input is not real difficulty. The ability to prepare and execute is what separates good players from bad ones. Equalizing that is removing the importance of skill to outcome, and removing any coherent reasoning to balance anything along with it. That's not how Rimworld operates, and it's not a matter of opinion.
Quote from: Oblitus on July 04, 2018, 12:13:23 AMIt makes sense, but unfortunetely it adds a way to avoid danger which is against base game rule: any danger should always be able to wheck you irregardless of preparations.
I disagree. Most dangers in the came can be overcome with virtually no chance of wreckage given sufficient preparation. Toxic fallout (manage exposure, maintain decent stores), cold snap (good clothing, heating equipment or emergency wood), heat wave (passive coolers, sufficient AC units on freezers), blight (good crop layout, quick reaction to threat), disease (maintain adequate medical supplies, try to have at least 2 decently trained medics), mad animal(s) (maintain adequate food supplies, keep colonist indoors unless prepared), poison/psychic ship (build defenses around ship with traps, careful placement of grenadiers, careful hit and run sniping or just nuke the buggers with mortars). The only adaptive dangers in the game are raids, and the preparation for those is the fundamental constraint on base building. If you make it so that raids essentially ignore defenses, either through their ability to tunnel through walls or batter down doors, you remove our ability to prepare and thus remove half the game.
Quote from: giltirn on July 04, 2018, 12:26:19 AM
The only adaptive dangers in the game are raids, and the preparation for those is the fundamental constraint on base building. If you make it so that raids essentially ignore defenses, either through their ability to tunnel through walls or batter down doors, you remove our ability to prepare and thus remove half the game.
Very very well said. I was trying to figure out why I was getting a slow buildup of distaste for playing and you worded it perfectly. The penalty for not being able to handle a raid is generally a colony wipe, and the more you're forced to go pawno y pawno with raiders, the more likely (read, assured eventually) you are to lose the colony.
Plus, I *LIKE* being smarter than the enemies. :)
Quote from: giltirn on July 03, 2018, 06:25:55 PM
It's clear that Tynan has a goal in mind with these changes, specifically for us to fight out in the open mano a mano and forgo base defenses.
No, that's not the goal at all.
What I'm trying to avoid is really simple, one-piece-fits-all base defenses that solve every problem risk-free. Your base defense should be contextually adapted, complex, varied, interesting, and should fare differently against different threats.
Also related is that caravan fights and attacks on enemy sites, where you have no base, should be viable, as base defense should also be viable. This implies that base defenses are useful but no particular defense is absolutely necessary versus a given threat.
Quote from: Tynan on July 04, 2018, 01:32:01 AM
Quote from: giltirn on July 03, 2018, 06:25:55 PM
It's clear that Tynan has a goal in mind with these changes, specifically for us to fight out in the open mano a mano and forgo base defenses.
No, that's not the goal at all.
What I'm trying to avoid is really simple, one-piece-fits-all base defenses that solve every problem risk-free. Your base defense should be contextually adapted, complex, varied, interesting, and should fare differently against different threats.
Also related is that caravan fights and attacks on enemy sites, where you have no base, should be viable, as base defense should also be viable. This implies that base defenses are useful but no particular defense is absolutely necessary versus a given threat.
Which personally, I appreciate. I like building bases that are more like a collection of nearby buildings with some security checkpoints and sandbags and such. It contributes more to a sense of story for me than always building some kind of gigantic death fort. I'm trying to follow the narrative of some survivors trying to make it on a harsh world, not of a lost band of space marines waiting for pickup and fortifying their evac point to a ridiculous degree.
I kinda read conflicting opinions, not sure if these come from the same people.
Some people claim that armors are useless and not worth doing.
Some people claim that nerfing killboxes renders their pawns too easy to damage, and combat is too RNG to risk.
Aren't good quality armors answer to that? I mean, sure - you will get bullet to the brain once in a while, but now we have means of healing such wounds. All it comes down to is whenever you can get those. And tbh this is more interesting (overcoming difficulties) over nothing ever happening to anything and you simply sitting inside your killbox building up your ship.
Dunno D:
The more you expose yourself to RNG, the worse you will do on average. There's very little in this game you have to leave up to RNG, much less than people here think.
The question is why a player, knowing an option that doesn't risk a pawn's brain exists, should pick options that do. That's especially an issue when you increase the number of dice rolls per raid.
- Roll 99% odds 3000 times across a game and you're going to get popped.
- Roll 80% odds that many times and you're going to lose your colony.
- Do everything right, and you're only losing stuff when you actually make mistakes.
Which option are players going to pick? As their skills improve, increasingly the third one. "Sometimes you lose no matter what you do" rationale is bad for the game. What you do *should* matter, and it *does* matter...apparently more than most of the community thinks.
Quote from: Tynan on July 04, 2018, 01:32:01 AM
Quote from: giltirn on July 03, 2018, 06:25:55 PM
It's clear that Tynan has a goal in mind with these changes, specifically for us to fight out in the open mano a mano and forgo base defenses.
No, that's not the goal at all.
What I'm trying to avoid is really simple, one-piece-fits-all base defenses that solve every problem risk-free. Your base defense should be contextually adapted, complex, varied, interesting, and should fare differently against different threats.
Also related is that caravan fights and attacks on enemy sites, where you have no base, should be viable, as base defense should also be viable. This implies that base defenses are useful but no particular defense is absolutely necessary versus a given threat.
I want a challenge, it's part of why this game is one of the best out there. Do you really find it fun to have next to no risk? You mentioned sitting behind a sandbag and hitting fast forward, not seeming to realize that's exactly what you do with most kill boxes haha. Ditching minimal effort cheeses(like killboxes and animal hoards) and making you actually position, kite, change things up every single fight, is the whole point of combat and a challenge. And walls, gun turrets, and kill boxes are far from useless, their purpose is to fill in a few gaps and support your troops, not win the fight for you.
The only thing i want more, is more things in the terrain to affect what i build and where. So far, it is mostly just affected by mountains, temperature, and water. A lot of the replayability for me is crafting a new base and play style around my environment. Taking advantage of natural choke points from hills, rivers, and marshes. Swamps added a bit to it with very dense trees. I would love to see more! Maybe quick sand, sink holes, building on higher/lower elevations(this would be cool with a penalty or bonus to accuracy!), open lava field..?
Tynan edit: Sorry, I deleted this by accident. Very sorry, I read it though!
Quote from: Scavenger on July 04, 2018, 02:26:02 AM
Quote from: Tynan on July 04, 2018, 01:32:01 AM
Quote from: giltirn on July 03, 2018, 06:25:55 PM
It's clear that Tynan has a goal in mind with these changes, specifically for us to fight out in the open mano a mano and forgo base defenses.
No, that's not the goal at all.
What I'm trying to avoid is really simple, one-piece-fits-all base defenses that solve every problem risk-free. Your base defense should be contextually adapted, complex, varied, interesting, and should fare differently against different threats.
Also related is that caravan fights and attacks on enemy sites, where you have no base, should be viable, as base defense should also be viable. This implies that base defenses are useful but no particular defense is absolutely necessary versus a given threat.
I want a challenge, it's part of why this game is one of the best out there. Do you really find it fun to have next to no risk? You mentioned sitting behind a sandbag and hitting fast forward, not seeming to realize that's exactly what you do with most kill boxes haha. Ditching minimal effort cheeses(like killboxes and animal hoards) and making you actually position, kite, change things up every single fight, is the whole point of combat and a challenge. And walls, gun turrets, and kill boxes are far from useless, their purpose is to fill in a few gaps and support your troops, not win the fight for you.
The only thing i want more, is more things in the terrain to affect what i build and where. So far, it is mostly just affected by mountains, temperature, and water. A lot of the replayability for me is crafting a new base and play style around my environment. Taking advantage of natural choke points from hills, rivers, and marshes. Swamps added a bit to it with very dense trees. I would love to see more! Maybe quick sand, sink holes, building on higher/lower elevations(this would be cool with a penalty or bonus to accuracy!), open lava field..?
I don't use killboxes as replacing turrets is annoying and expensive. I prefer building my base to funnel enemies through traps, split them up, and to use sally ports to flank them with weapons fire and sometimes melee. My defenses are geared around being able to reposition myself to negate enemy fire. Doors are a fundamental part of this design, hence my concern.
Sappers can't destroy your walls if you base is surrounded by turrets. You really don't need to have one opening to your base in which you place all your turrets in.
And given that there are less raiders corresponding to the value of your base now, you can add more turrets that won't always be used (but will cover openings that sappers could otherwise use), but won't contribute as much to raid size.
I like all of the changes. I like all of the things that challenge simple solutions like "I have a wall, I don't need to worry about anything now."
Doors are fine. Wooden doors too weak? Build out of stone (it's great that the speed of wooden doors is now offset by their weakness, it also makes autodoors more important). Still having problem with things bashing through the doors? Make double-stacked doors. Make sure you have firing points to the sides to harass anything trying to break through. Have multiple layers of defenses. A system of strong points throughout your base. Adopt hit-and-run tactics and a base layout that allows this (helps to deal with being outnumbered).
The idea that the changes now force use to slug it out toe-to-toe is nonsense. Approach things more creatively, definitely. That's not a bad thing.
Quote from: giltirn on July 03, 2018, 08:59:35 PM
Agreed. In most encounters we are massively outgunned and outmanned - our only defense is our wits and our preparation. If you nerf all of our actual defensive strategies then we are just rolling the dice over and over until we get a 1; game over. This is boring. If anything we should be seeing defensive strategies being buffed. I don't mean killboxes, but things like traps, embrasures and moats should all be in the base game.
I agree with this. If the goal is to make varied defences, then they should add more kinds of defences. Almost a tautology. I get that nerfing a strong strategy can bring weaker ones into play, but that only works if those other strategies actually exist. All we have for defence is the wall, door, trap, turret, and mortar, which boils down to only a few (like 2-3) broad strategies.
I honestly think it'll take time for the meta to catch up to the current design.
Old design favored very "closed" bases - lots of walls to funnel and control enemy movement.
Now that sappers are stronger, such a closed-paradigm design can be a liability. It may be better to strategically "open" the base to create fields of fire for the extremely powerful autocannon turret and recently-buffed mini-turret. Using lots of walls to block movement actually fights against this since it blocks LOS from your turrets.
I can imagine a format with a wide perimiter wall, with a large "moat" of territory just inside covered by overlapping autocannons (maybe this is farm/grazing land), with the compact town inside that. The idea is enemies come through a gap in the wall and get mowed down as they cross the open zone.
There's other approaches too. I've seen town-like designs with turrets covering long straight streets, Paris 19th-century style.
Autocannons have a long range and can cover a very large field if placed well.
Basically the paradigm of walls being the be-all-end-all control mechanism is changed; walls are now both useful but also a liability against your turrets since they block LOS. It will take time for old assumptions to work themselves out. I think a lot of people are mostly still talking "in relation to B18", not just judging the game as it is. It'll take time.
Quote from: giltirn on July 04, 2018, 02:43:40 AM
Quote from: Scavenger on July 04, 2018, 02:26:02 AM
Quote from: Tynan on July 04, 2018, 01:32:01 AM
Quote from: giltirn on July 03, 2018, 06:25:55 PM
It's clear that Tynan has a goal in mind with these changes, specifically for us to fight out in the open mano a mano and forgo base defenses.
No, that's not the goal at all.
What I'm trying to avoid is really simple, one-piece-fits-all base defenses that solve every problem risk-free. Your base defense should be contextually adapted, complex, varied, interesting, and should fare differently against different threats.
Also related is that caravan fights and attacks on enemy sites, where you have no base, should be viable, as base defense should also be viable. This implies that base defenses are useful but no particular defense is absolutely necessary versus a given threat.
I want a challenge, it's part of why this game is one of the best out there. Do you really find it fun to have next to no risk? You mentioned sitting behind a sandbag and hitting fast forward, not seeming to realize that's exactly what you do with most kill boxes haha. Ditching minimal effort cheeses(like killboxes and animal hoards) and making you actually position, kite, change things up every single fight, is the whole point of combat and a challenge. And walls, gun turrets, and kill boxes are far from useless, their purpose is to fill in a few gaps and support your troops, not win the fight for you.
The only thing i want more, is more things in the terrain to affect what i build and where. So far, it is mostly just affected by mountains, temperature, and water. A lot of the replayability for me is crafting a new base and play style around my environment. Taking advantage of natural choke points from hills, rivers, and marshes. Swamps added a bit to it with very dense trees. I would love to see more! Maybe quick sand, sink holes, building on higher/lower elevations(this would be cool with a penalty or bonus to accuracy!), open lava field..?
I don't use killboxes as replacing turrets is annoying and expensive. I prefer building my base to funnel enemies through traps, split them up, and to use sally ports to flank them with weapons fire and sometimes melee. My defenses are geared around being able to reposition myself to negate enemy fire. Doors are a fundamental part of this design, hence my concern.
Sounds like Fortnite PVE:P Just make a super trap base and chill while they melt.
Quote from: Tynan on July 04, 2018, 05:57:14 AM
I honestly think it'll take time for the meta to catch up to the current design.
Old design favored very "closed" bases - lots of walls to funnel and control enemy movement.
I can imagine a format with a wide perimiter wall, with a large "moat" of territory just inside covered by overlapping autocannons (maybe this is farm/grazing land), with the compact town inside that. The idea is enemies come through a gap in the wall and get mowed down as they cross the open zone.
There's other approaches too. I've seen town-like designs with turrets covering long straight streets, Paris 19th-century style.
Autocannons have a long range and can cover a very large field if placed well.
Basically the paradigm of walls being the be-all-end-all control mechanism is changed; walls are now both useful but also a liability against your turrets since they block LOS. It will take time for old assumptions to work themselves out. I think a lot of people are mostly still talking "in relation to B18", not just judging the game as it is. It'll take time.
I rather like a kiting retreating style of combat. Several rows of sandbags, with some narrow walled corridors here and there spread out to create retreat channels. I open with a few volleys from mortars, then when they get in range, they take some hits from colonists and auto cannons, and when they get in range to retaliate, i pop in a walled corridor and retreat, then pop out at the next row, and shoot, with some traps on their side of the first row of sandbags. And i repeat, retreating safely when they get too close, while auto cannons pelt them and they are slowed by traps. The final sandbag wall has the usual stone wall sections for bonus cover. Occasionally ill send out a pet hit squad led by a melee to pick off outliers, snipers, or runners.
It's almost a more open variant of the killbox, but allows for actual fun micromanagement and lets the colonists keep active throughout. I plan to test a nice stone floor for it so i can pop some fire bombs down too. May not be the most optimized, but its great fun! Just a challenge whenever sappers decide not to walk the boulevard of broken limbs:P
Quote from: Tynan on July 04, 2018, 05:57:14 AM
I honestly think it'll take time for the meta to catch up to the current design.
Thats what I actually like about the balancing process, the rules change and you need to figure out a new best approach to old problems, but I can see why some players find that unsettling, people tend to get set in their ways, not everyone welcomes change.
Regarding the subject of exposing your pawns to more risk, I think the game gives you a lot of leeway to rectify "RNG gone wrong", I mean we can craft prosthetics now, there is luciferium vs brainscars, isnt there healer mech serum to revive dead people as well?
Having a pawn die sucks, but its not the end of the world and knowing I might be able to revive said pawn later on, I can more easily accept him dying. Rimworld isnt constructed in a way that causes everything to collapse once you re missing a chesspiece, not even on extreme.
Quote from: Tynan on July 04, 2018, 05:57:14 AM
I honestly think it'll take time for the meta to catch up to the current design.
Old design favored very "closed" bases - lots of walls to funnel and control enemy movement.
Now that sappers are stronger, such a closed-paradigm design can be a liability. It may be better to strategically "open" the base to create fields of fire for the extremely powerful autocannon turret and recently-buffed mini-turret. Using lots of walls to block movement actually fights against this since it blocks LOS from your turrets.
I can imagine a format with a wide perimiter wall, with a large "moat" of territory just inside covered by overlapping autocannons (maybe this is farm/grazing land), with the compact town inside that. The idea is enemies come through a gap in the wall and get mowed down as they cross the open zone.
There's other approaches too. I've seen town-like designs with turrets covering long straight streets, Paris 19th-century style.
Autocannons have a long range and can cover a very large field if placed well.
Basically the paradigm of walls being the be-all-end-all control mechanism is changed; walls are now both useful but also a liability against your turrets since they block LOS. It will take time for old assumptions to work themselves out. I think a lot of people are mostly still talking "in relation to B18", not just judging the game as it is. It'll take time.
Sounds like one big killbox to me! :) Seriously though, this does seem like a buff to turrets and a nerf to other strategies. With a limited number of pawns it is essential to funnel and concentrate the enemy in the firing line of well-defended groups of pawns. If the enemy are going to split up and turn your base into swiss cheese your only hope is either to spam turrets everywhere or split your own colonists up. The problem with the latter is that you end up seriously outgunned as there are always more raiders than defenders, and you lose all your defensive advantage if they have already penetrated your base. You're just fighting room to room and rolling the dice every time as to who comes out alive. I personally try to avoid turrets because they are expensive to replace; even with a strong row of plasteel turrets you are going to lose at least one in a raid, far more if they get into melee range.
Edit: I think that part of my problem with these changes is that they prevent us from using our tools to control where raiders are going to attack. Most of the fun of designing a base for me is outwitting the raiders; forcing them into a situation they can't win. It's about using your limited resources to maximize your defensive advantage. Spamming turrets doesn't require any thought or planning, and there's not a lot else you can do if the raiders are going to ignore walls and doors.
QuoteMost of the fun of designing a base for me is outwitting the raiders; forcing them into a situation they can't win.
If that is so, I'm sure you'll enjoy raiders being smarter now. I mean, if it is fun to design base that outwits raiders, it is more fun the smarter they are, right?
Doing same thing over and over again doesn't sound like outwitting but abuse of bad AI.
My biggest issue with the new changes is the early game, not the late game. Granted I've always enjoyed the struggle of a playing from nothing start, or tribal with its long research costs, etc, but now I keep running into issues where I can't seem to make it to a high enough tech level fast enough before the raids become to strong.
I've lost so many colonies in just the last 2 weeks to sappers and seige parties. I either can't armor up well enough, fast enough, to take em on, or I have no way to control the fight well enough and just get overwhelmed once they get inside my base, whether its designed openly, or closed off.
With kill boxes being a thing before, at least I could build a base that I could survive with just colonists and cover until I got to turrets and such, but now I can't even live that long lol.
Quote from: mndfreeze on July 05, 2018, 08:37:17 AM
My biggest issue with the new changes is the early game, not the late game. Granted I've always enjoyed the struggle of a playing from nothing start, or tribal with its long research costs, etc, but now I keep running into issues where I can't seem to make it to a high enough tech level fast enough before the raids become to strong.
I've lost so many colonies in just the last 2 weeks to sappers and seige parties. I either can't armor up well enough, fast enough, to take em on, or I have no way to control the fight well enough and just get overwhelmed once they get inside my base, whether its designed openly, or closed off.
With kill boxes being a thing before, at least I could build a base that I could survive with just colonists and cover until I got to turrets and such, but now I can't even live that long lol.
What difficulty/scenario? Why not lower it?
Player scaling against raids can be done without tech.
That said, I'll believe a meta shift when I see one. That entities can't path over each other effectively in 1.0 is a significant nerf to the breach created by sappers for instance, and they'll tend to bottleneck there.
Meanwhile, tech that is > 20,000 research away and costs tons of resources is out of reach for most of the game where base design against raid defense matters. You get walls right away, and raider stuff as they attack. With deadfalls nerfed by armor changes micro and AI manipulation is going to remain the only viable defense for tribal barring massive changes to the game.
It does leave the question: what tactics, in principle, should allow the player to reliably win when raiders outnumber colonists capable of violence 2.5 to 1? In every iteration of 1.0 I've played (they've rolled fast enough for me to skip some), this is still possible to do...and obviously impossible to do with turrets on tribal tech openings. It is nevertheless still possible to damage raiders and not get damaged.
I know what does work, but what *should* work?
Well, tribals tend to do their best on warm climates anyways, so I guess on extreme you're forced into animal swarming. That's always been a strength of theirs since you start with 5 people and have more manpower to get it rolling. They've always had limited options, though, so it's not like there's going to be a great variety in strategies for tribal compared to other starts.
One question is, how can we win without using a door, without using a Killzone, at an open base with a minimum of RNG?
Unless it is very low difficulty, the enemy firepower overwhelms our firepower.
If we bow, they come with a gun.
If we are guns they have good armor or overwhelming numbers.
Even if they die, they will not be affected by the next attack.
When we are hurt, we are overwhelmed by the next attack.
It is currently impossible to raise colony's firepower to an equal level with limited time and resources.
If you have enough colonists in your power armor and you have a good weapon, you can do some open bass. Yes, I am in the same situation as the World Map Battle, Open Bases. But it is possible to avoid the World Map battle until it is fully prepared.
In a base battle we need to get the maximum efficiency out of the ready. I do not know how to fight the open bass situation you mentioned.
My good choice? Enemies also find nearby covers. Sand bags and walls are high, but only slightly higher. Where am I supposed to find an edge against raids in battle? How can you be prepared for limited conditions?
I feel that even this sniper turret is aiming open base. It is unstable. Because a sufficient number of turrets to overwhelm an enemy firepower is impossible because of the problem of resources and time. On the open base enemy are concentrated and we are scattered. It is a situation that tactics should avoid.
How much of a turret should I put in there for my colonists to take control of the enemy with minimal damage? Even turrets can not control. When enemy launch Doomsday and start burning with a Incendiary launcher, how much turret do we need to make? It also has a base every direction.
Untrained rimworld players like hills. Is it because the hills are fun? The hills are not fun. It's uncomfortable. But the reason they are so much is it is advantageous in defense. This is because it creates natural killzone.
B18, with Killzone, the enemy is prevented from coming in at once and concentrated enough on the firepower, so that the enemy has to deal with the attack time. Use the door to minimize enemy attack opportunities. We attacked more, and fewer had very few attack opportunities. Through it we found a win point.
B18, I was able to concentrate my resources on the limited points, so that I could concentrate my resources on only one side and consequently solve the problem with limited resources and time.
Even if you have enough resources and time. B18, I have not used traps and turrets. Because even if you leave your hand in battle (AFK) it solves the battle. That is not funny. Such should be fixed. It does not even have to worry about building. Just laid a lot. Then it wins. Is it fun?
But it is called cheese.killzone,door play. Because the enemy dies without doing anything. Of course, it did not consider the effort for it at all.
Well I just got an extreme win with open map turret+support strat. Regarding enemies with launchers, they do not appear in 1.0 until much later in the game. You should either have cannons or psy-lances to deal with them then. Yes cannons can tank a doomsday with plenty of hp to spare (triple launcher usually leaves them too vulnerable afterwards). Not to mention mortars are more effective late game and I probably should have been using IEDs too by then. Mechanoids are more common in end game anyways, I think I only saw ~6 launchers in enemy hands the whole game before the ship launch sequence. Vs inferno cannons, firefoam is a hard counter. Early game killzone is also less necessary as you can just pick up your turrets and move them now.
Regarding doors, I think this was just to nerf cheesing thrumbos and manhunters early game. Would this really affect their use against raids? Watching videos on people using door peekaboo against raiders I never saw a case where hp actually made a difference, although I don't have huge experience with door tactics myself (a little, though).
I think now I can formulate a problem with new balance.
Some facts about rimworld raids:
* Enemy is always stronger than you. Enemy pawns always come in overwhelming numbers, often carrying extremely valuable and powerful one-shot weapons.
* Enemy has infinite resources. While obtaining, training, equipping and sustaining pawns is a huge concern for a player, enemies are being spawned from thin air. Any loss, any injury, any damage would hit the player hard. Enemies would just spawn more.
* Enemies are not attacking to achieve some reasonable goal. They are attacking to deal as much damage as they can. They are attacking animals, burning crops and buildings, trashing furniture just to cause harm. They would do it even if it puts them in disadvantage tactically. They can afford it - they are all kamikaze created for this sole purpose.
Balance changes are obviously intended to eliminate player's ability to get whatever advantage, be it strategical or tactical. Basically all raids I'm heving in current version are sappers, sieges and drop pods - all of them created to avoid all types of defence player can have. New update also makes enemies learn where traps are, so they would become useless after several raids too.
Together this means that the game is rigged to be unwinnable by design. And it has nothing to do with difficulty - it is the core design.
Quote from: Greep on July 05, 2018, 01:33:07 PM
Not to mention mortars are more effective late game
I've tried to counter a siege with own (trophies from previous sieges) mortars once. I had 6 mortars. I've never hit anything despite targets being stationary. Not mortars, not pawns around them.
Quote from: Greep on July 05, 2018, 01:33:07 PM
Regarding doors, I think this was just to nerf cheesing thrumbos and manhunters early game. Would this really affect their use against raids?
It is strange that this bug reporter problem has not been solved so far if it is just patching the door for the thrumbo.
https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=31172.msg319331#msg319331
If this problem is still not resolved, so it is not a problem of Trumbo. This bug report is real cheese.
Door Cheese attacks at the time the enemy moves to the time of finding the cover, and hides behind the door if the enemy tries to attack. When the enemy comes out of the cover again, we come out and attack again.
The colonist is injured. Hide the colonist behind the door. He is safe. If you fight in the sandbag instead of the door, it is dangerous to get out of cover.
Cheese is a door that can easily escape from dangerous places.
For mechanodoids, I throw an emp and hide behind the door. When the enemy stunts, we attack the enemies. When the enemy finishes the stun, we hide behind the door again.
If it is melee, when the enemy approaches, avoid the back of the door, while we attack the melee enemy with another door while the melee enemy hits the door.
sapper, we stick our heads across the doors and catch the miners before the enemy responds. When the enemy is trying to respond, we run to the back of the door.
killzone- Narrow entrance dense firepower. When an enemy comes entrance, they die immediately. There is very little chance of them fighting back.
Quote from: Oblitus on July 05, 2018, 01:54:03 PM
Quote from: Greep on July 05, 2018, 01:33:07 PM
Not to mention mortars are more effective late game
I've tried to counter a siege with own (trophies from previous sieges) mortars once. I had 6 mortars. I've never hit anything despite targets being stationary. Not mortars, not pawns around them.
How long did you use them? My fort had 7, and they broke all sieges consistently before they fired a single shot, and broke ships with about 30 shells. They don't really become reliable against sieges until you have clumps of ~20 raiders, though, so I don't research mortars these days until I have nothing pressing.
Quote from: Greep on July 05, 2018, 02:06:33 PM
Quote from: Oblitus on July 05, 2018, 01:54:03 PM
Quote from: Greep on July 05, 2018, 01:33:07 PM
Not to mention mortars are more effective late game
I've tried to counter a siege with own (trophies from previous sieges) mortars once. I had 6 mortars. I've never hit anything despite targets being stationary. Not mortars, not pawns around them.
How long did you use them? My fort had 7, and they broke all sieges consistently before they fired a single shot, and broke ships with about 30 shells. They don't really become reliable against sieges until you have clumps of ~20 raiders, though, so I don't research mortars these days until I have nothing pressing.
Until enemy got out of ammo and switched to head-on assault. Somethign like 50 shots from my side at total.
QuoteRegarding doors, I think this was just to nerf cheesing thrumbos and manhunters early game. Would this really affect their use against raids? Watching videos on people using door peekaboo against raiders I never saw a case where hp actually made a difference, although I don't have huge experience with door tactics myself (a little, though).
HP didn't make a difference, and not against thrumbos either because as long as it has a "valid path to what it's attacking" when you shut the door it will attempt to use that path. Then you simply open the door and shoot it again, repeating until it bleeds out. Making it aggro the door regardless means repair door briefly while shooting it from another door --> still free hits. It's not an easy AI issue to solve.
Raiders that lose path to their target historically pick a new target randomly, after which you can open the doors again and pop them, shutting before their AI latches on again. Problem with making them concentrate on the door in question in dedicated fashion is that doing so opens up new abuses of AI.
QuoteBasically all raids I'm heving in current version are sappers, sieges and drop pods - all of them created to avoid all types of defence player can have. New update also makes enemies learn where traps are, so they would become useless after several raids too.
Sieges ate the nerf bat though since they don't have year 1 massed sniper rifles. As soon as you have a few mortars, you'll basically always force the siege to attack before it builds + fires its mortars (I play on extreme, so probably have enough raider density to hit some more consistently). The other two raid types are more problematic and essentially require micro tricks to handle reliably on higher difficulties.
Some of these have been arbitrarily labeled as "cheese". While that discussion was off-topic in the 1.0 thread, it's worth pointing out that this is still a sore point from a balance perspective and goes against the "balance process" thread. I'm not assuming thought processes, but rather going off what was stated to be the thought process in writing.
For words to have real meaning in the English language, they must *constrain anticipation*. I've seen people describe killboxes as cheesy and be okay with micromanagement based on doors. I've seen people describe the opposite. Both of these have real tradeoffs in the game...is the wealth + meat from a thrumbo really worth a full game day micromanaging to kill it? Sometimes pretty obviously yes (you're starving on sea ice), sometimes pretty obviously no (you're at risk of being raided, have enough food, and are delaying defenses and other productive tasks needlessly).
As another illustration: try to differentiate "door cheese" from "cover cheese"...letting the AI seek cover and simply leaving LoS when it does, only to return to LoS and fire once they leave cover to repeat the loop. Unless the enemy overruns you with melee, you can do this as long as your hunger/rest bars hold up and consistently hit raiders w/o return fire.
Unless the risk from taking damage gets reduced and trading damage taken for much faster defeats of raids becomes more viable, the meta will remain on "pick whatever option defeats raids with the least damage taken, and between similar performers pick the less expensive one".
Putting a wall around the base is going to remain very competitive because of its cost : utility, even if you do still need measures against sappers + drop pods. With alterations to sappers these actually play pretty similarly, you want to be able to defeat in detail inside the walls.
Quote from: TheMeInTeam on July 05, 2018, 02:24:38 PM
QuoteBasically all raids I'm heving in current version are sappers, sieges and drop pods - all of them created to avoid all types of defence player can have. New update also makes enemies learn where traps are, so they would become useless after several raids too.
Sieges ate the nerf bat though since they don't have year 1 massed sniper rifles. As soon as you have a few mortars, you'll basically always force the siege to attack before it builds + fires its mortars
Read about my actual experience with mortars vs sieges above.
Quote from: TheMeInTeam on July 05, 2018, 02:24:38 PM
Putting a wall around the base is going to remain very competitive because of its cost : utility, even if you do still need measures against sappers + drop pods. With alterations to sappers these actually play pretty similarly, you want to be able to defeat in detail inside the walls.
I suspect Taynan wants to demolish the outer walls in the sense of "Sniper Turret", "Plate Armor" and "Open Base".
It's like an outpost of a pirate.
Quote from: East on July 05, 2018, 02:35:14 PM
Quote from: TheMeInTeam on July 05, 2018, 02:24:38 PM
Putting a wall around the base is going to remain very competitive because of its cost : utility, even if you do still need measures against sappers + drop pods. With alterations to sappers these actually play pretty similarly, you want to be able to defeat in detail inside the walls.
I suspect Taynan wants to demolish the outer walls in the sense of "Sniper Turret", "Plate Armor" and "Open Base".
It's like an outpost of a pirate.
It's not going to happen with present AI logic and manhunters. Unless those change I can't picture a statistical alteration to present options that would accomplish it without breaking the game completely.
Movement control is central to defeating larger numbers based on the present raid types. To an extent this is even true for drop pod raids, they simply demand that whatever you put inside your base still has some flexibility in that regard.
I also have never understood how people use mortars effectively. In B18 they would only hit once in a blue moon, and I understand they have been nerfed even more since then. While you can of course have 5-10 mortars and waste hundreds of shells, this is ridiculously expensive both in terms of the steel and chemfuel resources, but also in the time spent making the shells. I already spend most of my time strapped for steel as it is!
Quote from: giltirn on July 05, 2018, 02:54:56 PM
I also have never understood how people use mortars effectively. In B18 they would only hit once in a blue moon, and I understand they have been nerfed even more since then. While you can of course have 5-10 mortars and waste hundreds of shells, this is ridiculously expensive both in terms of the steel and chemfuel resources, but also in the time spent making the shells. I already spend most of my time strapped for steel as it is!
This is true, it is mostly something for a very rich base with deep drilling and lots of enemies. Mortars are probably completely ineffective on medium and lower.
Mortars start being useful for their cost vs those 50+ man raids later on. Otherwise they're largely just anti-siege, and awkwardly better at that on high difficulties compared to middle/low.
Quote from: Oblitus on July 05, 2018, 02:29:49 PM
Quote from: TheMeInTeam on July 05, 2018, 02:24:38 PM
QuoteBasically all raids I'm heving in current version are sappers, sieges and drop pods - all of them created to avoid all types of defence player can have. New update also makes enemies learn where traps are, so they would become useless after several raids too.
Sieges ate the nerf bat though since they don't have year 1 massed sniper rifles. As soon as you have a few mortars, you'll basically always force the siege to attack before it builds + fires its mortars
Read about my actual experience with mortars vs sieges above.
Were you targeting manually?
Quote from: zizard on July 05, 2018, 07:00:42 PM
Quote from: Oblitus on July 05, 2018, 02:29:49 PM
Quote from: TheMeInTeam on July 05, 2018, 02:24:38 PM
QuoteBasically all raids I'm heving in current version are sappers, sieges and drop pods - all of them created to avoid all types of defence player can have. New update also makes enemies learn where traps are, so they would become useless after several raids too.
Sieges ate the nerf bat though since they don't have year 1 massed sniper rifles. As soon as you have a few mortars, you'll basically always force the siege to attack before it builds + fires its mortars
Read about my actual experience with mortars vs sieges above.
Were you targeting manually?
Yes.
Quote from: Tynan on July 05, 2018, 09:46:13 AM
Quote from: mndfreeze on July 05, 2018, 08:37:17 AM
My biggest issue with the new changes is the early game, not the late game. Granted I've always enjoyed the struggle of a playing from nothing start, or tribal with its long research costs, etc, but now I keep running into issues where I can't seem to make it to a high enough tech level fast enough before the raids become to strong.
I've lost so many colonies in just the last 2 weeks to sappers and seige parties. I either can't armor up well enough, fast enough, to take em on, or I have no way to control the fight well enough and just get overwhelmed once they get inside my base, whether its designed openly, or closed off.
With kill boxes being a thing before, at least I could build a base that I could survive with just colonists and cover until I got to turrets and such, but now I can't even live that long lol.
What difficulty/scenario? Why not lower it?
I did already! haha. I used to always play randy extreme or cassandra extreme. Now I'm struggling with rough/hard. I'm not disagreeing with your design goals or anything, Just having a hard time getting to the point of what you mentioned as the new meta will shift to. It feels to me like the pace of the enemy difficulty like when sappers and seiges start showing up, or poison/psychic ships, is too early on now for how much you have to get done to get a colony to that point. Like now we have a lot more steps from initial start to turrets and good defense strats, but the harder fights are still spawning at the same points in the game so I'm not nearly as built up as I would have been before.
On the few crashlanded games I've played it definitely wasn't as bad, but still pretty rough. The scaling just seems a little off balance. I think if enemy spawn events were pushed back a bit in the time line it would fix it for the most part. It really just seems like the event escalation balance doesn't match the additional time sink thats in the game now with research needed to make yourself safe. Perhaps the tribal research points need to be lowered just a bit to help counteract all of the increased steps and scaling, but IMO even crashlanded feels a bit off.
Also just so it's said, I'm not a new player at all. Been playing a really long time so it's not like I'm just making noob mistakes and stuff.
Apologies for more theorycrafting but I just noticed the new sniper turrets. More turrets? I thought the idea was to encourage more tactical play, not just making one giant killbox out of your base! IMO turrets should be a tool for shoring up weak areas of your defenses, or as a trap in themselves; not the go-to strategy for raid defense. Also, if we are being pushed towards a turret meta, how are we supposed to survive in the late game when enemies become more numerous while resources become more scarce? I forsee mining camps and trader spamming becoming utterly essential, especially on non-mountainous maps. In B18 you can keep up with the threat with stone walls, doors and traps, using your base to guide and funnel the enemy. It seems this will no longer be viable :(
Quote from: giltirn on July 05, 2018, 10:14:01 PM
Apologies for more theorycrafting but I just noticed the new sniper turrets. More turrets? I thought the idea was to encourage more tactical play, not just making one giant killbox out of your base!
Don't worry, they are utterly useless.
[attachment deleted due to age]
Quote from: giltirn on July 05, 2018, 10:14:01 PM
Apologies for more theorycrafting but I just noticed the new sniper turrets. More turrets? I thought the idea was to encourage more tactical play, not just making one giant killbox out of your base! IMO turrets should be a tool for shoring up weak areas of your defenses, or as a trap in themselves; not the go-to strategy for raid defense. Also, if we are being pushed towards a turret meta, how are we supposed to survive in the late game when enemies become more numerous while resources become more scarce? I forsee mining camps and trader spamming becoming utterly essential, especially on non-mountainous maps. In B18 you can keep up with the threat with stone walls, doors and traps, using your base to guide and funnel the enemy. It seems this will no longer be viable :(
I hope they'll keep adding more security options. All these different types of turrets to vanilla, never thought I'd see the day. Well, I haven't needed to spam a bunch of turrets around my base yet. If you do just do that then yeah, it'll eat up your resources and good luck protecting all of them. Your post about handling larger raids.. You got quests for better rewards. I've had several for anti-grain for example. Got mortars (only useful for large raids IMO), weapons like doomsday, incendiary; very handy if you're good at it. The options are growing. Hopefully the risks for quests will be properly tuned when it's all done. Just seems like you're bummed out that you can't cheese the enemy as easily. Are the raids smaller than b18? Seems like it.
Quote from: Oblitus on July 05, 2018, 10:27:38 PM
Don't worry, they are utterly useless.
Wow! So I had to dev test the sniper turret after seeing that. Not sure how I feel about them. The time it takes between each shot feels about right. Was able to take down some pawns with power armor in one shot so that's neat. A pawn can still absorb multiple shots by these. Of course the hit is rng... So I had several shots land back to back, then other times where it took over 20 shots to even land a hit. I mean they seem somewhat useful to me but... the 200 steel for barrel change is also a bit harsh for that IMO. To be honest, I'd probably be more bitter towards them if they didn't land any hits in a real raid which is likely to happen at some point.
Turret shooting levels need to match their use, not just be a flat 8, or let us upgrade them through AI installation. Could even (maybe for a mod) have turret AI that e.g. avoids friendly fire, shoots at closest / furthest, and highest / lowest armour, etc.
Regarding armour layers, if each layer is tested separately, with armour penetration applied to each layer, then regular clothing almost does nothing. Since each gun usually has at least 15 penetration and clothing rarely goes above 30 sharp, even when made out of strong material like heavy fur. The EHP increase due to 15 final armour is only around 10%. This is also why wood armour is terrible. Interestingly, blunt gunshots can still penetrate, i.e. hit the brain.
I noticed that caravan quests often give a huge amount of the same item. e.g. 2020 patch leather for 4 resurrection serum or 69 shortbow for 7 healer serum. I suggest that when there are more than 2-3 of such items, that the game should try to add some different kinds of rewards, like 2 healer, 2 psychic lances, and a doomsday, for example.
I also suggest adding some more tiers of mechanoids. Even a single scyther or centipede can be overwhelming in early game, and then masses of 30 are tedious late game. Early on they should send some inferior types, and later, some of the spam should be replaced by elite units.
My thoughts on the sniper turret are mostly that shooting accuracy at very long range is what pawns are better than turrets at, plus they can aim at specific targets which is usually important at range (killing rocketeers first). So I'm not seeing a whole lot of use for it even if it was good. It's a cute concept, but seems a bit redundant. Maybe if you had an economy fort that literally had no shooting pawns but even then, eh.
As for theorycrafting, I doubt Tynan cares about that in this thread anyways, it's not like a forum-wide rule. It's just he has to read every post in the 1.0 thread, so its his thread his rules.
Quote from: Greep on July 05, 2018, 11:59:55 PM
My thoughts on the sniper turret are mostly that shooting accuracy at very long range is what pawns are better than turrets at, plus they can aim at specific targets which is usually important at range (killing rocketeers first). So I'm not seeing a whole lot of use for it even if it was good. It's a cute concept, but seems a bit redundant. Maybe if you had an economy fort that literally had no shooting pawns but even then, eh.
OH yeah! Not being able to manually target is a real bummer, especially since it's possible that it can shoot your pawn. That's some scary stuff. I was thinking maybe these would be good for luring raiders if anything. Not sure how well that will work just yet tho but the costs is still too high IMO to consider that as it's main use.