Alpha 5 and sieges

[Cassey]

Shooting skill doesn't affect mortar accuracy as of now.

I am aware of the sniper-vs-siege semi-exploit. Thinking about ways to counter that - I may just have the siegers go into assault mode once about 25% of them have died.

If you did that, you would overwhelm every colony I've tried.  Typically I only have 4-6 colonist, and sieges have a dozen plus.  Its hard enough when dealing with the mental breakdowns associated with manning a mortar base.

Speaking of which, can you bring back the "Soldier is tired" feature so we could rotate them out instead of having them go the mental breakdown route?  I pause and release anybody that is having mental issues, but its often too late - by the time they get food, or sleep, or whatever their highest priority is, I lose them.   Suffering at least twice as many losses to that vs. actual combat damage.  Yeah, I can arrest them, but when you only have 6, and 4 are in prison, and the prisons take a round and they escape, it gets frustrating.

Related:  Whats with prisoners going into Rage mode and escaping?  I'm routinely having them bash their way through wooden doors, often to drop unconscious shortly thereafter, but not always.

[Cassey]

The first siege I've had was 6 mortars (5 incendiary, 1 explosive) along with 15 pirates. This was on Chill Callie around day 90, with 6 colonists. I sent in a couple snipers to knock out the mortars, but base suffered some minor damage (solar panels and farms burned up). I'd say it's not that much of an exploit because the pirates usually advance to shoot you. However they went insane quickly, probably halving their numbers by the second day. I didn't even have to kill them, so many became dazed that they eventually starved.

One approach I took, which seems to help, is to build my mortar field well beyond the colony, and of course, spread out so that one direct hit doesn't take out more than one colonist.  Recently I've been building a 3x3 grid of mortars with a half dozen spaces or so between them, ideally in a desert so that fires go out quickly.  Even though I typically only have 4-6 colonist to man them, the rest serve as spares should a few be destroyed.

Am I missing it, or does mortar fire rate seem random?  I haven't spotted any type of recharge rate like rifles have.

[Ender]

The first siege I've had was 6 mortars (5 incendiary, 1 explosive) along with 15 pirates. This was on Chill Callie around day 90, with 6 colonists. I sent in a couple snipers to knock out the mortars, but base suffered some minor damage (solar panels and farms burned up). I'd say it's not that much of an exploit because the pirates usually advance to shoot you. However they went insane quickly, probably halving their numbers by the second day. I didn't even have to kill them, so many became dazed that they eventually starved.

One approach I took, which seems to help, is to build my mortar field well beyond the colony, and of course, spread out so that one direct hit doesn't take out more than one colonist.  Recently I've been building a 3x3 grid of mortars with a half dozen spaces or so between them, ideally in a desert so that fires go out quickly.  Even though I typically only have 4-6 colonist to man them, the rest serve as spares should a few be destroyed.

Am I missing it, or does mortar fire rate seem random?  I haven't spotted any type of recharge rate like rifles have.

your missing it, in fact, it tells you exactly how long until the mortar can fire again, just select the mortar and in the little info box, where normally if it was a colonist, you would see their name and stuff, it will tell you. and once that time runs out you can zoom in and see the mortar do the loading to fire animation like all the other guns do.

[Cassey]

Thanks... It was WELL past midnight when I was playing...

[fraz]

I love the new siege mechanic, however, I think it could be more interesting and nuanced if it functioned a bit more like a siege, as opposed to a 1 day battle of long-range bombardment.

Thus far, I've had 2 sieges in my Chill Callie game. I'll discuss the second siege to illustrate my point, though the first was a similar experience. The siege occurred around day 80, with 7 mortars (6 explosive, 1 incendiary) and 18 pirates. I was fighting back with 7 colonists and 4 mortars, lined up with 6 spaces between each mortar. Fortunately, I was able to fire my first volley of mortar shells just as the pirate's finished constructing their mortars. A lucky hit destroyed 2 of their mortars. Their first 2 volleys destroyed 2 of my mortars and killed 1 colonist. Alarmed by the toll already taken in the opening stages of the siege, I sent out 2 snipers to harass the enemy. From this point on, the battle went decidedly in my favor. The pirates stupidly targeted my snipers with their mortars, as my mortars (2 surviving + 1 rebuilt) rained death from above. The whole thing was over in less than a day.

It was fun, but a bit disappointing, as I felt I won only due to the stupid behavior of the pirates, and because it felt more like a long-range battle than an actual siege. The rate of attrition that results from mortar bombardment is far too great (on both sides) to be sustainable for multiple days. It seems I need to neutralize their mortar firepower as quickly as possible (either with overwhelming mortar firepower of my own, or by ground attack) if I want to avoid getting bombed into the stone age.

Simply weathering the attack is not a viable option, and therein lies my disappointment. I should expect mortar fire to burn my crops, destroy exposed fragile equipment such as solar panels, and make it dangerous for colonists to be outside. I can prepare for these threats by maintaining large stockpiles of food and batteries, and by bringing my colonists indoors. But, unfortunately, these measures make little difference when mortar shells blow through stone walls as if they were made of paper.

[Tynan]

It has turned out on wide testing that they do sometimes end up with really extreme numbers of mortars, as do players. I'm thinking of doing an ammo system for artillery in future so everyone doesn't just pour shells at each other freely all the time.

[fraz]

Personally, I generally like the lack of ammo in the game; one less thing to micromanage. I suppose it would be fine for mortars, especially if there is a "Munitions Worktable" to maintain one's stockpile of shells.

Regardless, I think the deadliness of explosive mortar shells ought to be addressed. Specifically, the fact that nothing provides any meaningful protection from them aside from being under a mountain.

[Xanting]

I don't think even roofs will save you from mortars, or at least the thin rock/metal roofs. If mortars did use ammunition it would be a good idea to buff their fire speed as currently you have to wait half a day for mortars to fire another round off. Also it would be nice if fast forwarding was possible even while under a mortar attack as the chances of your colonists dying from them is slim.

[BetaSpectre]

Mountain anti no roof zones are mortar immune. My first objective when starting was the burrow into the mountain like a dwarf.

Sadly never had a seige yet. Little ore and no internal power sources. Didn't get lucky on this one. in fact unless I get a power source soon I'm frakked if fighting more than 10 raiders in a siege.

[Cassey]

OK, just finished another frustrating night.  Things I can control and do poorly I have no problems with.  Things totally out of my control that destroy 6-10 hours of work is, well, annoying.

I have my colony up to a dozen or so folks, and have a nice 3 x 4 grid of mortar launchers awaiting use.   Problem is that siegers appear to be able to drop in, build a half-dozen launchers, and attack all before my guys can even get to the the launchers.  Yeah, maybe there are 20-30 of them, but they shouldn't be able to build them faster than my guys can walk.  I managed to get one guy to the grid and half the mortars were blown to pieces before the rest of my crew could get there - and its not a far walk.

Then Random Randy had his way with me, and brought in a second group of siegers while the first was still attacking....

Oh, Randy needs a bit of a governor too:  I had three colonies decide to come visit all at the same time.  Holy hell broke loose, they destroy a big chunk of my stuff fighting each other, and then the rating went down for some reason and they turned and attacked me!  Instant death - my dozen vs. 50-60 of them with no warning.

Cassey

[Headshotkill]

It has turned out on wide testing that they do sometimes end up with really extreme numbers of mortars, as do players. I'm thinking of doing an ammo system for artillery in future so everyone doesn't just pour shells at each other freely all the time.

Instead of constant firing, why not have them do a barrage?
Shoot roughly at the same time for maximum chaos!

[psilous]

I still hold that the most effective way of dealing with this is not to fire mortars back but take your crack team of attackers down and destroy the whole lot of them. I have done this with 3-5 well armed attackers against 20-30. Those mortar installations blow up very nicely and take out whole lots of them

[Cassey]

Oh... is it possible to mass aim them as well?  Currently wasting a lot of time each cycle clicking on all 12 mortars, one at a time, scrolling the screen, and doing C.  If I don't, I have found them tracking wayward attackers (whomever is closest) instead of targeting the mass of them.

[BetaSpectre]

OK, just finished another frustrating night.  Things I can control and do poorly I have no problems with.  Things totally out of my control that destroy 6-10 hours of work is, well, annoying.

I have my colony up to a dozen or so folks, and have a nice 3 x 4 grid of mortar launchers awaiting use.   Problem is that siegers appear to be able to drop in, build a half-dozen launchers, and attack all before my guys can even get to the the launchers.  Yeah, maybe there are 20-30 of them, but they shouldn't be able to build them faster than my guys can walk.  I managed to get one guy to the grid and half the mortars were blown to pieces before the rest of my crew could get there - and its not a far walk.

Then Random Randy had his way with me, and brought in a second group of siegers while the first was still attacking....

Oh, Randy needs a bit of a governor too:  I had three colonies decide to come visit all at the same time.  Holy hell broke loose, they destroy a big chunk of my stuff fighting each other, and then the rating went down for some reason and they turned and attacked me!  Instant death - my dozen vs. 50-60 of them with no warning.

Cassey

I like Randy like this, many events many random. Its awesome.

[Vylsok]

I'm fascinated by this mechanic and hopefully some of my feedback can get your brains going.

The AI needs some sort of a motive and goal coded in that is the driving force behind the act of a siege.  Retaliation for a prior act, aggressive expansion, resource scarcity, etc. could all color a siege in completely different ways.

As for the shelling, I like the idea of limiting the resource, but if there was some way for the AI to assess battle readiness of the colony, that might help to generate agency for the next action of the attack. 

For example, if I assign (Leader) to Frank, Frank runs a check to see if Turrets are visible from his location, if the visible attack point has power, if colonists are visible, and what time of day it is.  If these conditions are met, Frank issues a storm order to accomplish the team's goal (steal crops, steal uranium, kill Bob who killed their teammate in a prior attack, etc.)

Lastly, I would also code in a battering ram of sorts. These crazy avatars knock down metal doors a bit too easy for my taste, and a battering ram would be a nice modifier that could make it a bit more realistic.

Sorry for the wall of text!