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The real answer is that mass turreting was just a popular, not necessarily effective strategy (even in b18).

On CL or tribal extreme, the decisive threats were typically  always type that was non killboxable (late year 1 siege w/ multiple BAR/sniper or sapper), and generally hit in timing where turret research was tight. Defeating these decisive raids practically = winning position.

On significantly easier difficulties, you could do whatever you want and still win. So polling those actions is going to tell you next to nothing about actual utility.

To reiterate - what is popular is not always strong. Typically the only exception is pvp games with matchmaking rating, which allow a semi objective way to select for effective strategy.

PS. Is it possible to provide information about raid point generation changes  for 1.0? There is some curiosity whether there is a significantly larger wealth-independent time scaling factor on raid strength now.

I was listing specific counterplay for early year 1 NB/extr starts, none of the things you mentioned except possibly rolling early ancient dangers to buy foil helmets are relevant.

Is there any particular reason psychic drone debuff was increased to -24 (with hypersensitive, -43... good luck tanking that with anything but a wedding)

Was there some storytelling component gained from inducing extreme breaks with very little (viable) counterplay?

I suppose this is what I signed up for while playing NB/extr - so far my solutions for counterplaying this are:

* Chain raid ancient dangers and stockpile soothe pulsers.
* Caravan off the map / cryosleep. Early in the game, this can result in fighting off 1v8 or 2v8 raids as early as late month 2 / early month 3. Latter is probably doable, but I thought Tynan was trying to discourage cheese...? At 1v8, it just means trading off one RNG for another.
* Tank the extreme breaks. This is an unsatisfying resolution, as good outcome would have nothing to do with skill - just rolling well.

Incidentally, the option I picked was 2, and got raided as the caravan was moving to leave. Defeated raid with zero damage taken, yet it feels empty knowing that RNG completely dictated the resolution of this situation.

Now i understand why Tynan dont like theoretics

Do you perhaps think it's because people can't or refuse to do math, don't know how to test their theories, let their feelings do their thinking for them,are about as observant as quails, and stubbornly refuse to change their minds about their aforementioned feelings irrespective of the level of objectivity surrounding the subject?

Its still a "noob trap" building as new players wound't immediately think to just box in a growzone with a sun lamp and farm from the soil rather than building this thing.

Context is everything. Perhaps in an all-year-round growing area with infinite soil and the ability to defend it irrespective of location it might be true that some colonies would benefit from such a setup.
Lets do some math shall we?

A sun lamp covers 101 tiles,consumes 2900 power between the hours of 6 and 18. It's effectively on half the time. Ignoring the nature of battery efficiency and the variance in power generation we can assume it uses 1450 constantly. Assuming standard soil it has a grow density of 1-1, 1 tile = 100% growth and all 101 tiles are used.

Hydroponics consume 70 power and 16 of them can be placed within a sun lamp without forcing pawns to clamber over them slowing movement speed.  This totals 1120 power all day long.
Hydroponics however have 280% fertility per tile, assuming a 100% fertility sensitivity crop like Rice then each hydroponics has a true density of 2.8. 16x4x2.8 = 179.2. This is 77% more grow space.

So in reality a sun lamp with hydroponics uses 77% more power (1450->2570) and yields 77% more growing space(101->179.2)
If you use an 18 basin setup these numbers shift a little bit into hydroponics favor.
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Assuming a situation where you don't have soil in exactly the place you want to grow your crops hydroponics are just fine.
It's true that a solar flare lasts long enough to kill your crops in their basins but that's simply a cost intrinsic to being able to relocate your growing zones to wherever you would like. Under a mountain, in the middle of a desert, ect.

It should also be noted at this point that if you're in an environment that doesn't require temperature control then sun lamps almost pointless whereas hydroponics continue to increase your field density at the cost of power.

The general argument against hydroponics comes from component investment which is relevant unless you've already stabilized a winning position.

There's also the consideration of rice labor costs.

The reason theorycraft is often frowned upon is because most theorycraft is bad or ignores relevant factors.

Listing the skills of the incap refugee would help.

Thank you for the more detailed response.

I must admit, I don't understand why your pawn died to disease considering you clearly have good medicine and penoxycyline. Perhaps you just had a bad run? I know it sucks, but hey, these things happen. Death is expected on the Rim, and while it totally sucks you were very well prepared when tragedy struck, you have a good story to tell.

A caravan needs 4 men minimum is quite untrue however. If you're just selling to nearby colonies, 1 man and 1 pack animal is good enough, provided said trader has good enough Medicine and is a good fighter. I've sent single man rescue missions just fine, with only outposts being a noticeable exception. Sleeping mechanoids are very easy to circumvent by just rescuing the refugee and GTFOing out of there.

Pack animals are needed when you collect silver based rewards for your quests. 2500 silver weights quite a lot. The idea that pack animals are slow is well, untrue. If you had to haul 500 silver with you, it's better to have a pack animal then doing it by yourself. It's why 1.0 shows that weight limit. The more stuff you have, the slower you are. That's why pack animals are great. They're not "slow" as long as you don't bring a pregnant animal.

As for base defense, traps, turrets, mortars, IEDs, really the game gives you enough options to defend yourself. You can also request help from allies if you're really hurting. You have the tools to make caravans work, use them! Or you know, just recruit more people.

Caravaning in 1.o is the best experience so far in RW. Barring a few issues, it's the most noob friendly it's ever gonna get.

EDIT: This was all done on Cassandra Intense.

I will say that these considerations only tend to apply when you've stabilized. Things like having redundant doctors, raid scaling such that you don't need all hands on deck, are things that are typically only enjoyed in an already won position.

When playing desperate start (so far been 'enjoying' the treat of NB/extr on 1.0), it is not immediately obvious that you can even afford to recruit pawns the normal way, you are relying on rescues instant join and maybe the generosity of the storyteller. Both are RNG, but both also don't burn 20-30+ meals for questionable return.

Keep in mind that a large proportion of 'crashland tech' pawns are typically low utility (one of the advantages of the tribal pool is relative paucity of horrendously incapable pawns), with a large fraction being negative utility- this issue is further accentuated with rescue quests since you're taking risks and losing time to secure pawns that on average will be bad.

I think this analysis relies on a bad case of confirmation bias. He is assuming randy is the most fun for him and misrationalizes observation that can be explained by other things (e.g. Randys 0.5x-1.5x raid size modifier roll)

The warm-up of bows is excruciatingly long compared to pistols (which are still top tier weapons for early-mid), I can't see credibly why bows are considered strictly better.

Chain shotgun was already a meme with anemic range (due to intercept chance making a large contribution to fight damage output, effective accuracy in practical combat situation is highly tied to range), now falls into the dumpster even harder.

I do think wimp might be a little punitive.  They're not pawns I'm willing to work around until late game if I have access to a painstopper.  Not just little injuries, but any arbitrary disease (even flu or gutworms), scarring, etc will just drop these guys.  I guess if you want a really bottom-tier trait it does serve the function.

Pyros are an unfortunate liability.  You can usually work around the fire starting spree, but if they do this in a raid situation they'll suicide into bullets.  If it weren't for this I'd consider it a markedly more attractive trait than wimp :p.

Centipedes aren't so bad...until there's 6 or 12+ of them.  Keep in mind East's example is utilizing a shooting skill that you won't have on 3 pawns in practice, and in a real game pawns aren't invincible, so you'll kite.  If we're going > 90s per centipede and have 12 centipedes this is some pretty heavy amount of IRL micromanagement... > 10 minutes of IRL time just kiting centipedes.  It's not hard per se', but man you can get sour feeling if you just killed a mech ship and then another half dozen of these things waddle in from the edge of the map as part of an ordinary raid.

Maybe snipers do better with armor pen?  Their baseline DPS is lower though.

It isn't even so much the danger to the colony that makes pyros and chemfasc annoying to play around. It is the danger to themselves, as being liable at any time to decide that walking into 5 mechs with no cover is a good idea makes investing to them almost pointless.

Incidentally if you tone down wimp it would actually turn into a good trait. It is often far better for your pawns to go down early before they take critical bleeding / vital part damage than too late and end up with torso destroyed.

[I'm instituting a temporary moratorium on theorycrafting here. Any posts not related to some specific and up-to-date play experience will be removed.]

Overall, the balance has shifted far too much towards pure theorycrafting in this thread. So I'm instituting a temporary moratorium on theorycrafting here. Any posts not related to some specific and up-to-date play experience will be removed.

We'll see how this plays out, and we can let the theorizing back in slowly later. But at the moment it's simply not useful since it's almost always based on very false assumptions.

Thank you in advance to anyone who posts a play story or specific experience-based feedback.

Countering against theocrafting, it is untrue that in less than a year's time Sieges will be bringing Snipers.








People here like TheMeinTeam can come and make false statements and then "edit" them out when they realized they had no real back up in their comments before Ramsis see them.

But based on authentic experience, I tell you again, Sieges are not hard even in Extreme difficulty, and also notice, I had zero pets in combat as opposed to the other's response saying so.

Any tribal colony CAN beat a Siege with Great bows, the largest range the enemy had was "1" single Bold action rifle.

in b18 month 3-4 siege would typically bring snipers/multiple BAR. Do you realize that sample size = 1 means very little?

Its possible that 1.0 changed raid point generation and scaling so it is less likely to happen. But you can make the point in much less hostile terms, and your single sample doesn't mean everyone else is a liar.

It is funny, you post with assumption that you are the best player around. And yet you have much to learn (as do must of us).

(Incidentally, I started playing extreme/tribal 3 weeks into playing this game, with some games taking zero sharp hits for several years, and I am awful player, don't bring it up as an end all be all argument. It certainly doesn't connote full game mastery and the right to bypass making actually good arguments.)

PS you take a siege that literally sets up at top 1% RNG position in range of your high cover and you claim all sieges are easy? Surely you have to be trolling right? Instead of bragging I would analyze whether I made any mistakes in taking a hit.

I still haven't 100% worked it out...when is it possible for pawns to traverse between squares diagonally, and when is this restricted?  I sometimes see pawns dart between each other in checkerboard setups, but in others the game insists on pathing them through something that slows them instead or blocking them entirely. 

Even after reloading/replaying some encounters I've not pinned down a consistent model that allows me to anticipate what happens each time I right click a drafted pawn.  Sometimes, they move right past diagonally and sometimes they don't.

Same deal for pawns moving through each other.  As of 1.0 this is much more restricted...but sometimes they still move through each other while usually they can't.  Absent consistency, it would be nice to know what the rules allow in terms of movement since this stuff has a huge impact on raid micromanagement.

I noticed this as well while testing some 1.0 movements.

I think part of it has to do with reserved movement. Even in b18 you could not issue a movement comand to a square reserved for a pawn movement command. However you could achieve fluid control in that patch by undraft draft. Two new changes are that a pawn in a reserved space will instantly try to move off the space at the earliest opportunity where they are not locked by an animation, and second,  is that pawns will now 'reserve' spaces the game is forcing them to move to (this happens a lot with tightly clustered pawns if they are jostling each other).

This causes situations where if you intend to place a pawn in a doorway, while it was reserved by someone currently standing in another tile, the pawn will path through the doorway completely, because the door is reserved by a pawn drafted somewhere else (again, this is very different behavior from b18 as a drafted pawn would never reserve tiles it wasn't standing on, now it can happen)

This can be disaster, since that one tile is the difference between getting hit by 1 or 5 enemy attackers at melee range, not to mention walking into no cover.

I have noticed other situations where collisions during a movement command will cause asinine repathing but this is kind of hard to reproduce.

Again, it can't be overemphasized that during outnumbered fights on extreme where you aren't completely cheesing the enemy, fluidity of control and making sure pawns take the actual paths you want them to take (and not a path the game 'helps' you to take) is of utmost importance.

PS for claims of overpowered or balance it would be helpful for people to state difficulty they play on. Even in this thread there are certain users making wide range assumptions about optimal play / overpoweredness and making passive aggressive 'get gud' snark  despite playing on beginner difficulties.