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A display counting the amount of soil, gravel and rich soil squares, when you plot a growing zone, would be lovely!

Sometimes I actually find tribals more troublesome than pirate raiders in the late game, as tribals raid in larger numbers, and their weapons are split between melee/ranged almost 50/50, making them quite an effective force. And their greatbows are actually quite good. Deal a lot of damage and have decent accuracy.

You can probably get away with a chain of around 10-12 shells (that's without chunks), so 140-160 steel to obliterate a 50+ raid is not bad at all, considering it's quite normal to loose a turret or two, during a raid, which could cost you more than that.

Would be more effective if you also put a bunch of rock chunks in there to slow them down as they approach the turret, allowing more to enter the room before the turret is eventually destroyed.

Indeed. I just tested that, and it works quite well. The only problem with that, is that because the shells need to be 2 squares from each other, they damage all the chunks 100, so they will only last 3 raids, which means they need replacing a lot. But because you can let that many raiders in, you also don't need to make the corridor that long

Another example is, if you find a marsh or a similar slow walking ground texture, you could integrate it on that.

Are you certain you need to place a shell every two squares to make them detonate ? I Think every third square would do.

I'm sure this design can be improved. Place a door at the start and at the end. If you can afford so many shells and components, surely you can afford extra 50 stone. The idea is to have them bunch up more so more of them fit in the blast. Then you might not need such long corridors.

And if you want to get a high score, place deadfall traps in their usual escape path. It doesn't matter they will discover it - once they panic they run into traps.

I don't think it's a problem their equipment will be damaged. Tribals mostly carry crap only fit for smelting. Sometimes a more expensive tribalwear and that's it. You can use incendiary IEDs - uranium spears don't burn.

Yes I am sure. Just tested it. The chainreaction doesn't go off, if you place them every 3 squares.

Hmm, you mean a door for them to break? Sure that could work.

Also, only the IED cost components, so you only need 1! The rest is just artillery shells which cost only 10 steel.

+1 one to that second to last phrase too!

And to the "damaged good" point, yeah you're right. That would only be more of an issue when it's pirate raids who attack. Which this seems to work on too.

Now to try it on mechs!

[Colonist traits]

Colonist traits
Squeamish: gets a temporary negative mood when he sees blood, a surgery, cooking with meat or butchering.
Whiny: decreased pain resistance. Colonist is incapacitated more easily.
Always Wanted A Pony! - similar to prostophile, but a random animal is chosen. As long as the colony doesn't have that animal, -5 mood. Once you get the animal, +5 mood. An ice sheet colonist might want a cobra, elephant or an alphabeaver. This trait is essentially a mini-quest.

Haha, good simple suggestions. Love the "I want a pony!" trait... Imagine a colonist having a meltdown, causing the colony to crumple, just because she wanted a Labrador and not a warg ^^

*UPDATE*

This setup actually works better. A 5 wide corridor, with 1 artillery shell every 2 squares. This example I used 12 shells. It completely obliterated the tribal raid, of god knows how many. Check the other images in the link to see what I mean!

And with this one, the walls aren't damaged either, making it a lot more profitable. The only downside is probably that the raiders' clothes and weapons gets damaged.



http://imgur.com/a/QyedI

Gonna try that for sure!

Do so, and let me know how it works for you! I still need to do more testing.

The way you place the shells, are by placing IED shells, but only make the pawns haul the artillery shells there, then cancel the construction

This could also be used as a seperate system, that you can "activate" when needed, by putting doors in the ends, and keeping them open, for when you want the raiders to go through it.

I would mostly use this against tribals, and not pirate raiders or mechs for example. But it might work against those too!

Soo, as we all know, it can be easy to fall into the good old killbox with turrets. So I want to see your defence systems, that isn't the classic bullet rain, kill box.

I was just messing around with setup earlier, using a single IED trap, and a bunch of artillery shells. And I can say that it works quite well for tribals at least. 45 entered the map, 15 ran away without a single bullet needing to be fired.

And cost wise I don't think that it's that bad either, as shells by themselves are only 10 steel. It could probably be just as effective with a thinner hall, and fewer shells. That might also save the hall structure itself. But the essence is for the hall to be long enough, that as many tribals/raiders as possible enter, before they trigger that last IED, setting off the chainreaction, that most of them don't have time to escape!

So, what do you guys have?

Outfits fitting pawns backstory would indeed be nice. But should also be kept at a minimum, so it doesn't create any situations where you keep re-rolling pawns, to get specific items from the get go.
But the ones you mentioned would fit fairly well I think! 

I remember a time where I was being sieged by one faction, only to have an enemy of said faction (still an enemy of me) spawn a raid to attack immediately which happened to pass through the siege camp of party A.
It was a slaughter. And the colony lived until the next raid.

There was also several times when a tribal group removed some Mechaniods for me. Cheers guys

I've had that one happen too! It feels sooo good to see the raiders annihilate each other, before even getting close to you!

Same with, shitting a psychic ship to let the mechanoids out, just as a raid is passing by it!

Unfortunately, the faction relationships on my current map doesn't allow much of this

Randy can be a bro sometimes.

I don't have the best luck clearing out hives sometimes. They get out of hand and then there are 100 insects running about. Then they mine out into the wild blue. That's when things get fun. Mechs and people both hate bugs with a passion (I'm convinced mechs were originally exterminators).

Its hilarious watching a multi day war between insects and another group. I just picture my colonists sitting back, sipping tea, commenting on the explosions, screams and gunfire.

Then again Randy can be a jerk sometimes too. The last time this happened he made me wait a year before another raid showed up. That was interesting. I ended up with a 3 shaped wall trying to keep the bugs out of the main base.

This is when, digging and building random structures in mountains, away from your mainbase, can actually prove profitable. They are far enough away to annoy you, and can sometimes dig out and prove a challenge to anyone wandering nearby!
You can also close off said mountain, and install coolers. With enough coolers you can kill the hives themselves, and kill off all of the insects (except of the mega-spiders mostly, as they have a lower cold-tolerance)

Hehe, it's weird how the lack of raids, can actually turn into a bad thing!

A word of warning though, your animals behave like berserk colonists, they have a "key" and dont give a shit if the door is forbidden or not And they bite each other when standing still.
The pulser is too tricky to use in my opinion, either have no animals, or lock them in single cells, which is a pain in the ass to do. I always have some animals around for hauling, wool, etc... and thats why I always sell pulsers should I find some.

Ohh jeez... That's what I feared. I've never actually used the pulser yet, but now that I know that it affects pets too, I guess I never will ^^

+1 +1 +1!

This would be very welcome!

Something similar would be nice too, with how storage zones work. Right now I have a high priority zone for meat/vegs, right inside the door of the freezer (because I literally have almost 10000 units of food), and it is annoying that haulers, go haul foods to those stockpiles, even when there is only missing 5 pieces of food. Again making it very inefficient. Maybe this one is harder to implement though.

That is very unlucky. But hang it. I once got a trader who carried 200 fertilized eggs... Now imagine if I bought and let those hatch.. damn!

Yup! Their movement speed is 6.50 squares per second, where regular colonists only manage around 4.45

So, they would need people with two bionic legs to get away from them. And on top, a few of them have at least been hit by a bullet or two, further decreasing their speed

They also do quite well in regular combat, but they should only be released when necessary, as they don't take thaaat many bullets

Eh, it's just my opinion.  And opinions are like armpits - everyone has them. 

Anyway, don't use my idea unless you think it's good.  I couldn't compose a tune to save my life.

Except that guy who raided the colony and got both of his arms shot off