Manhunters Both Stack and Attack Doors

[pdxsean]

The detail text for manhunter packs suggests that animals won't attack doors, yet every time one of them drops on me the pack immediately starts knocking doors down in my exterior walls. Am I mistaken here, do they only resist attacking doors that lead directly to an interior? I haven't been able to test this because inevitable they break through the doors in my walls and I have to fight them off manually. 

On a related note, the animals in these manhunter attacks pile up on one another - a dozen or more in one cell - and smash doors down. I thought the whole concept of multiple enemies attacking from one cell was forbidden in v14? 

Anyway I wanted to point out these potential bugs... either their behavior is wrong, or the flavor text is wrong. Either way, manuhunter packs are absolutely the most lethal attack force and when combined with a solar flare (as I'm currently dealing with) can devastate basically any colony.

[Shurp]

The flavor text is outdated, yes, I've noticed this behavior too.  Unfortunately the stacking change does prevent them from piling up on turrets so not enough get killed when the turret blows up.

[pdxsean]

The only regret I have to switching over to permadeath mode is these manhunter packs. I guess I could turn them off at the start in the scenario editor. Honestly they are very fun when the animals don't attack doors, and of course I love the lifetime supply of meat. But when 24 wargs attack the doors protecting 8 colonists during a solar flare, there's no way I can think of to avoid destruction.

[Grubfist]

The detail text for manhunter packs suggests that animals won't attack doors, yet every time one of them drops on me the pack immediately starts knocking doors down in my exterior walls. Am I mistaken here, do they only resist attacking doors that lead directly to an interior? I haven't been able to test this because inevitable they break through the doors in my walls and I have to fight them off manually. 

On a related note, the animals in these manhunter attacks pile up on one another - a dozen or more in one cell - and smash doors down. I thought the whole concept of multiple enemies attacking from one cell was forbidden in v14? 

Anyway I wanted to point out these potential bugs... either their behavior is wrong, or the flavor text is wrong. Either way, manuhunter packs are absolutely the most lethal attack force and when combined with a solar flare (as I'm currently dealing with) can devastate basically any colony.

It is unclear, but what seems to happen is that Manhunters won't "lock on" to a target that is behind a door, however, they will chase a target they are "locked on" to even if it means beating down a door.

Unfortunately, they tend to "lock on" to someone the exact moment they enter the map.

[Juan el Demgrafo]

In my experience they usually lock off once my pawn gets inside if they are far enough away (I'd estimate line of sight). I just get one of my fast colonists to go and turn off the two turrets and hunker down for a while.

[Andy_Dandy]

In my experience they usually lock off once my pawn gets inside if they are far enough away (I'd estimate line of sight). I just get one of my fast colonists to go and turn off the two turrets and hunker down for a while.

Yeah, it's no problem what so ever. They usually stop hitting the doors long before they are broken down, even if the door is made of tree. If you try to fight them things might end up differently of course.

[Lightzy]

They never attack doors if they don't see your pawns around them.

Just make your restricted zone not include the doors.

[bluntobj]

When I encounter this it's usually with wargs or muffalo, and I like to set 2-3 pawns with personal shields behind the door, and then stack shooters directly behind them with accurate weapons to minimize backshots.  When the pack stacks, I set the door to hold open then have the meatshield pawn open it.  The pack then gets torn apart by gunfire, and I swap the meatshield out with undamaged meatshields as they get injured.

Then do the rescue on downed animals...

Only exception is the boomalope pack, and then the only way is to get your ranged pawns out to kill them as far away from your base as you can, and hope for the sympathetic explosions.

[pdxsean]

In my experience they usually lock off once my pawn gets inside if they are far enough away (I'd estimate line of sight). I just get one of my fast colonists to go and turn off the two turrets and hunker down for a while.

My experience is very different. The manhunter pack will enter the map, then beeline for a door and break through the doors in a stack in my outer and inner walls. No line of sight on the pawns inside, and ignoring the no-door path through the killbox. I've attached a screenshot of my map, with the path that 20 wargs followed to attack my base. It was a little later than this - I had 8 pawns not just 6 - but everyone was in the interior wall. You can't see it but at the top of my killbox (upper left) there's an opening with no doors where enemies can walk in. Rather than that, the wargs beelined for the exterior door indicated, attacking it in a stack and demolishing it in like two seconds. Then they immediately, in a stack, destroyed the inner door also marked. I couldn't even organize my pawns fast enough to mount a defense since they were kind of scattered around the main part of my base when the wargs arrived.

[pdxsean]

They never attack doors if they don't see your pawns around them.

Just make your restricted zone not include the doors.

I haven't had this experience. In this case (you can see my map in the previous comment) my "safe" zone doesn't allow my pawns to be near the doors in my interior wall, let alone my exterior wall. Yet the wargs immediately tore down the doors on both, rather than taking a longer route to the door-free killbox in the NW. 

What you are describing has worked in the past, it's the strategy I tend to use. The fact that it hasn't been working in v14 is why I made this post in the first place.

[Shurp]

Only exception is the boomalope pack, and then the only way is to get your ranged pawns out to kill them as far away from your base as you can, and hope for the sympathetic explosions.

Boomalopes are easy to kill.  They're *slow*.  So just have all your pawns run outside and start shooting, running away whenever they get too close.  Spread out!  If your pawns are really bad shots eventually the fires will kill them.

The hard part is putting out all the fires afterwards...