Alternatives to killboxing

[Mikhail Reign]

- No farming
- NO HUNTING
- Everyone eats simple meals of zombie flesh or, when we are lucky, fresh human meat

I've played with that mod, and the amount of meat that you get off zombies is way OP, especially when you compared it to the amount of meat that you get off a human.

[Darth Fool]

Ever look at a medieval castle? If you're fighting guys who do not have siege equipment, this is exactly how defenses work in real life.

I don't think a castle is an appropriate comparison, especially if trying to appeal to realism as a justification - here is a quote from Wikipedia on the cost of building a castle:
...
A separate question: how did single-family log cabin homesteaders protect their property in colonial America? I truly mean single family (e.g. a dozen or less total members to rely on for labor), not a garrison from the British Navy with a compliment of laborers.

A good example from history is the instructions given to the settlers at Jamestown, VA

When You have Discovered as far up the River as you mean to plant Your Selves and Landed your victuals and munitions to the End that Every man may know his Charge you Shall Do well to Divide your Six Score men into three parts whereof one forty of them you may appoint to fortifie and build of which your first work must be your Storehouse for Victual 30 Others you may imploy in preparing your Ground and Sowing your Corn and Roots the Other ten of these forty you must Leave as Centinel at the havens mouth The Other forty you may imploy for two Months in Discovery of the River above you and on the Contrary [country?] about you which Charge Captain Newport and Captain Gosnold may undertake[.] of these forty Discoverers when they Do Espie any high Lands or hills Captain Gosnold may take 20 of the Company to Cross Over the Lands and Carrying half a Dozen pickaxes to try if they Can find any mineral. The Other twenty may go on by River and pitch up boughs upon the Banks Side by which the Other boats Shall follow them by the Same turnings You may also take with them a Wherry Such as is used here in the Thames by Which you may Send back to the President for Supply of munition or any Other want that you may [be?] not Driven to Return for Every Small Defect.

So roughly 1/3 were used to fortify their landing site, 1/3 for growing food, and 1/3 for exploring for profit. 

And what was it that they were looking for on their colonization site ... a way to the sea, and a killbox.

Note, even if you are building a small fortification by a small number of men, you want a killbox.  Allowing the enemy a choice of directions to attack you from is trouble in real life as well as games.  What makes kill boxes obsolete is civil society.

An alternative historical perspective on what a very small number (1) of castaways does to defend themselves would be: Alexander_Selkirk , the probable inspiration for Robinson Crusoe.  What did he do when his enemies (the spanish) arrived.  He hid.  Up a tree.  Arguably, the base of the tree was a kill box, but the more important point is that he hid.  Currently In RimWorld this is sort of doable by building a wall over your only entrance or locking the door and assigning people to fix it repeatedly until the raiders die or visitors come and chase them off. 

[b0rsuk]

English is not my first language. Can you point out where in the quote they mention a killbox ?

[Kaballah]

(re: zombies)
I've played with that mod, and the amount of meat that you get off zombies is way OP, especially when you compared it to the amount of meat that you get off a human.

They give exactly as much meat/leather as a human corpse does, they don't have any custom butcher products, it's inherited from the human def.  They have the same size as well.  You just get lots and lots of them 

In an unmodded game you have meat coming out of your ears from all the animals constantly littering the map anyway, you just don't have -12 or more mood penalty for eating it.

[Darth Fool]

English is not my first language. Can you point out where in the quote they mention a killbox ?

Sorry, earlier in the link then the excerpt I used...

An Enemy that may approach you on Even Ground may Easily pull You Out and if he be Driven to Seek you a hundred miles within the Land in boats you shall from both sides of your River where it is Narrowest So beat them with Your muskets as they shall never be Able to prevail Against You.

And in a nod to FoW

And to the end That You be not Surprised as the french were in florida by Melindus and the Spaniard in the same place by the french you shall Do Well to make this Double provision first Erect a Little Sconce at the Mouth of the River that may Lodge Some ten men With Whom you Shall Leave a Light boat that when any fleet shall be in Sight they may Come with Speed to Give You Warning.

[b0rsuk]

And the turrets ? Where does it mention turrets ?

[Kaballah]

Are you being funny, because obviously automated turrets that only shoot enemies do not have a historical analogue.  Any dug-in fortification in which there are dudes with guns is an OK substitute though, and military history has this kind of thing everywhere.

[b0rsuk]

Are you being funny, because obviously automated turrets that only shoot enemies do not have a historical analogue.  Any dug-in fortification in which there are dudes with guns is an OK substitute though, and military history has this kind of thing everywhere.

I don't think it has people living in one, though. I don't know anyone who lives in a bunker.

[Kaballah]

During WW1, yes, soldiers literally lived in bunkers and trenchwork.

e: not to say they didn't at other times in history (they did), just WW1 is probably the stereotype most people are familiar with

[RemingtonRyder]

Basically the idea is that the defender know the most likely approach route of the attackers and can repel them more easily by taking up better positions.

Most attackers, realising that the defenders have the advantage, will fall back and either give up (fight again another day) or circle around to find a weakness.

Thing is, in Rimworld there might not be any weak points in the defensive layout, save for digging through rock. which raiders and siegers currently won't do.


My inclination would be to make turrets a bit more fragile, a bit less damaging as standard, and have a greater cooldown, but allow the player to stagger the firing of turrets so that the zone doesn't become friendly just because one turret is on cooldown.

But also, something that is annoying is between battles, having to replace the resources put into turrets and rebuild them if they're destroyed. Instead let them be disabled if they're simply shot at a lot, and require much less resources to bring back to operational status, but not no resources at all. This would make it less practical to repair them in the middle of a battle, I think.

You could also give turrets a rudimentary 'health' system, meaning that they don't perform as optimally when heavily damaged as they do when in perfect condition. Different damages could require different amounts of resources to fix up. This also opens up the possibility of modding them individually, much like the limb and organ replacement for colonists. I'm sure modders would love to get their teeth into adding even more customisation options there. Instead of having turrets built out of stuff as they are currently, different resources could go into making customisations for the basic model - so, plasteel could make a more durable casing. Maybe there could be modules which debuff the enemy by exposing them to bright light, poison, or irritants for example.

The idea is that the turrets are not the major firepower of the base, but draw the fire of the attackers, allowing the defenders the opportunity to move around and flank them. Which, when I think about it, is not easy. I've often found myself wishing there was more time for my colonists to use corridors and such to get into position. That's why in one mod I added an upgrade path to make turrets able to take a bit more punishment.

This means that your colonists aren't just sitting behind walls waiting for the turrets to mow down raiders, and they may still get hurt when they try to pick off the attackers. But the odds and outcome might be improved by your tactics and the colonist's skills rather than raw firepower.

This is by no means the only direction turrets could go in, of course. Just trying to come at it from left field.

[Kaballah]

In the real world, attackers would look at your typical killbox-defended impregnable colony, say "welp fuck that, I'm not going in there" and go look for softer targets.  Word would get around among bandits that your colony is a tough nut and nobody would come make war against you unless they bring tons of artillery to crack it.  This makes for boring gameplay if you just stay inside and weather it though, and isn't really practical on flatlands maps.

[b0rsuk]

Killbox colonies are only impregnable because raiders are too stupid to attack a wall. A 8 people raiding party can easily have 3 grenadiers, do you think they couldn't take a wall down if they wanted to ?










Most of current killbox designs rely on the idiocy of the AI. It would be a completely different story if AI just learned to identify weak spots of perimeter walls and blew them up with grenades.

It's not rocket science. It doesn't require very sophisticated algorithms. The main goals:
- pick walls which, when destroyed, would dramatically shorten the path to the juicy bits
- avoid areas covered by turrets, especially multiple turrets
- attack doors if you find any. There are so much more expensive than walls and more fragile.
- attacking walls far away from colony entrances is very inconvenient for the defender
- alternatively, if you have some long-ranged raiders, destroy walls which would let turrets to be outranged.

[Kaballah]

And that's only a big deal because the rules are known and can be exploited.  Ok, attackers are coded to try to dig through 1 tile of wall.  What about walls 2 thick?  5 thick?  Ok, we have coded attackers to try to dig through 5 tile thick walls.  While they are busy digging into this confined space, oops I've moved a squad of 5 dudes in behind them and wipe them out while they're busy with that job.  Oops I'm firing my mortars at you the whole time.  Oops I enclose the tunnel you dug yourself into and freeze you with the 20 coolers set to -100C / boil you with the 20 heaters that I turn on with one switch.  Oops I turn on the 25 turrets you just dug yourself into.  Those examples you're showing only have that "weakness" exposed because the players know it isn't actually a weakness; if it were they just would build differently.

Designing un-exploitable game AI is not a simple matter.  There is only one source of enemy AI that hundreds or thousands of players all simultaneously attack and learn how to exploit, and then they share their techniques (like the thread you're quoting images from).

e: You're also totally ignoring the idea of leaving walls for enemies to destroy that are also supports that will cause cave-ins when destroyed.

[RemingtonRyder]

I suppose then, to make the AI less exploitable, it needs to be less predictable as well as smarter.

For example, instead of thumping a roof support until it collapses, the raiders could shoot it out from a distance, then move in.

In the case of digging/damaging a weak point to gain entry, not every raider needs to be in the same place - some of them could cover the sappers until there is an actual breach to move through.

It's worth bearing in mind also the role of the AI is not to wipe out all the colonists, but to provide tension to the story. So, if some raiders die when your colonists surround and ambush them, that may actually be desirable in terms of the story. If you kill them all by picking off the ones which flee from the ambush in panic, that's also a valid but different narrative (of a band of ruthless survivalists who take no chances).

Perhaps then, attackers should enter the flee state earlier if they face unsurmountable odds - the AI recognises a deadly trap as it is revealed. Which may mean less loot for the defenders.

This can also feed back into the AI's pawn selection and attack pattern and keep the player on their toes.

For example, you may find yourself needing to target those grenadiers as a priority because they're trying to make a hole in a wall for the rest of the guys to pour through. If you kill the one grenadier, the attackers are thwarted and may decide that Plan A was the only shot they had, and run.

Or, their newest attack pattern might simply be to throw some molotovs at your solar collectors and try to draw you out.

Any way you look at it, it'll take quite a few versions and some serious designing. Which is fine. It's better to add one wrinkle at a time and end up with the right mixture, than rush a bunch of things in and destroy the gameplay.

[b0rsuk]

AI like I described, more intent on finding weakness in a base, would punish heavily for putting all turrets in one killbox. Why can't raiders give higher priority to shooting colonists in view than blowing up a wall ? Have fun shooting mortars at your perimeter wall. Show me wall design where removing a single path-obstructing wall section would make it collapse. Pillars don't obstruct path, walls have supporting sections nearby.

Making them build differently is the whole point. Anything that shifts the metagame from Tower Defence is progress. Ultimately they just have to cause damage to be a problem. Like I said above, attacking doors alone would make you cost lots of resources. Even if it's plain door, that would be 4x more materials with 1/3 less HP.

Honestly, making raiders attack randomly half of the time would be enough. They don't have to go for the absolute best strategy all the time, just be less predictable.