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If there is a delay, perhaps the reason most people do not notice it is because the game does not drop the speed to normal as it does with raids and other highly dangerous events.

All I can say is that when running on full speed I don't get enough time to see the event and hit the pause button before the megaspiders come out.

I like the idea of insect hives, creating a threat that comes from below ground is a good way to balance the advantages of building underground bases.

However the way insects spawn from the hive with no waring seems to be a bit too punishing. I find that hives will spawn in the centre of my colony and kill multiple pawns before I can even get to the pause button. This usually leads to the death of the entire colony as my best fighters are killed before they can organise.

I recommend that the bugs themselves should not spawn until a set period of time after the hive itself spawns or until the hive is attacked, whichever comes first. That way the player will have some warning which they can use to relocate their colony to the far side of the worldmap.

Turrets are a liability, so I never build them.

My suggestion is that for next alpha the turrets get removed and the amount of raiders gets balanced around a colony which operates without turrets.

this is already the case: raid size depends on colony wealth.
you don't make turrets = less wealth = smaller raids.

and btw, vs huge tribe raids a few tips: cover, snipers, molotovs, chokepoints, hit & run guerrilla tactics....
you can even build a trap room, let them all in and set them on fire once inside.
there's so much to do...

Not only that, but turrets disproportionately increase raid size. If you build turrets, raids will be larger than they would be if you used the metal for literally anything else.

The 'increasing raid size' is wealth. It adds building wealth, and wealth effects raid sizes. There's not really a way to not have it build more wealth unless you make them cheaper.

So make them less valuable. It's not like the player can buy or sell turrets and whatever their wealth is, it's clearly set higher then the steel that it takes to produce them.

Besides, it makes no sense whatsoever that raiders would be more eager to attack a place with 3 colonists and 10 turrets then they would be to attack a place with 3 colonists and 1500 steel lying around on the stockpile. The steel doesn't shoot back.

If I remember correctly another factor in raid size is/was colonists, and that 1 turret was the equivalent of 1/3 (?) of a colonist.  I remember talks about that in previous alphas.  I am not sure if that calculation has remained the same or not.

That is insane. 3 turrets is not remotely worth 1 colonist.

I do not use vanilla turrets.

The last time I used turrets (many alpha's ago), I noticed that building them noticeably significantly increased the size of raiding forces. Because of this and because of the overall feebleness of lone turrets, I therefore concluded that turrets were a liability outside of kill boxes.

To the best of my knowledge, this has not changed.

In the past I have said that turrets are paradoxically too weak and too powerful.

Turrets are too weak because they do insignificant amounts of damage, increase the size of raids and explode when destroyed. You cannot use them as a perimeter defence to deal with nuisance threats (angry squirrels) or to buy time for your colonists to organize against a major attack because they increase the raid size too much. And you can't use them as internal defences to deal with attackers who slip past your fighters, because they are so puny.

Turrets are too powerful because the only limits to how many you can build are the amount of steel you have and your supply of electricity. When turrets are organised into kill boxes the weaknesses of turrets become irrelevant, they can crush any attack with overwhelming weight of fire. Quantity is its own quality.

Why do enemies become more eager to attack you if you build defences? Should not enemies be more eager to attack a defenceless colony with lots of loot than they are to attack an impoverished colony with lots of defences?

If computer controlled turrets can be built without any resources except steel, why can't ordinary guns be built in the same way? You'd think a survival rifle would be easier to make then a computer that can magically tell the difference between good guys and bad guys.

My recommendation is to change turrets in the following ways:

1.   Turrets now require an appropriate weapon (either a LMG or a Minigun) to build.
2.   Turrets no longer explode.
3.   Turrets no longer increase raid size.
4.   Turrets are split into two varieties: Manned turrets which require only metal or plasteel and a suitable weapon and a colonist to man them while AI turrets would need an AI Core and a power supply but not require a colonist. Manned turrets would offer bonuses to accuracy and aiming time allowing colonists with low shooting skill to contribute to the defence at the cost of being immobile. AI turrets would be late game defences: powerful, but few in number and having one destroyed would mean the loss of a rare AI Core.

I voted for 'other'.

The thing I most want to see right now is an improved trading system.

Given that the setting has no FTL travel, the amount trade traffic above a world that produces next to nothing of value is already astonishing. It does not need to be increased.

Slave traders and regular traders are separate (different events), and after you get a certain number of colonists, slave traders stop appearing. It's one of the ways the game keeps you from getting too many colonists.

So that's why it I couldn't get rid of all those prisoners in my last game!

The things you learn.

The problem with turrets is paradoxical. They are simultaneously too powerful and too weak.

They are too powerful, because there is no real limit to the number of turrets the colony can have. This means that they can be built in such numbers that they reach a sort of ‘critical mass’ where they enemy is wiped out so quickly that your colony never faces any risk whatsoever.

Turrets are too weak, because if you don’t build them in such massive numbers they are simply more trouble than they are worth. They are not strong enough to defend an isolated area alone and their death explosion makes them more of a liability than an asset when put with your main defence line (unless you build so many of them that they outnumber your actual colonists).

My suggestion is to restrict turret numbers (by making them need unique components that can only be purchased by weapons traders and also by requiring colonists to operate them) while also increasing the strength of individual turrets by removing the death explosion and increasing their health.

snip

I agree with this idea. Make turrets a trade off between firepower and mobility while keeping their numbers limited by the number of people you have.

Looking at the form, I have seen a few complaints that auto turrets turn your colony into a tower defence game. I would like to propose a possible solution.

Instead of firing on enemy’s automatically, make it so that turrets need a colonist to crew them before they will function. The death explosion should probably be removed so that you don’t lose the colonist when the turret is destroyed.

That way your turrets can augment your colonists without replacing them (because the number of turrets you can have operational is limited by the number of colonists you have).