Arctic Colonies, Temperature, and Parkas

[Andy_Dandy]

quote author=Riph link=topic=11430.msg114435#msg114435 date=1426227599]
This attitude I see all over and it is such a mystery to me.

When the enemy brings a mortar siege on me, they have more M-24 troopers guarding the approach to their site than I have colonists in total.

From the IRC, my impression of this is that the people who claim they can just sally forth and shoot them are either playing with mods that enable easy recovery in some way, give far better offensive power, or are playing on Easy. Because what you describe definitely matches MY experiences. To take out siege groups in my game, given that there's about 30 or 40 of them and maybe 5-10 of me, an infinite supply of them and no supply of me, generally involves either artillery duelling them from my mountain fortress, or hiding under the mountain until they pass out from exhaustion and then cutting their throats one by one.

I play on Extreme Challenge, Tundra, huuuge map, and always go raiding the siegers. Even if I am 3 colonists and they are 10. It doesent mean I og out and kill them all, but send my long ranged guy up. I also bring my pistol lad up for protection if countered.

Some times it's very easy, and u can stand behind some rocks and shoot them one by one. Other times it has to be done over several days, because they have a sniper that deal damage on my sniper, or they counterattack with some melee chaps. Then I must retreat, and come back later.

It's not like I'm storming them in an all out battle.

[b0rsuk]

Parkas have -20% global work penalty, isn't that nice ?

Has anyone tried flat tundra and survived ? I mean on 100% difficulty.

[lusername]

Some times it's very easy, and u can stand behind some rocks and shoot them one by one. Other times it has to be done over several days, because they have a sniper that deal damage on my sniper, or they counterattack with some melee chaps. Then I must retreat, and come back later.

Yeah, THAT sounds a bit more familiar. Unfortunately, doing this does not, in fact, prevent them from incinerating your base.

Parkas have -20% global work penalty, isn't that nice ?

Yeah, but since about 90% of the time-cost of work is the hauling and moving, that's less than you'd think, as work penalty doesn't affect hauling or movement, which are the primary costs of doing anything.

Has anyone tried flat tundra and survived ? I mean on 100% difficulty.

I think you would probably die. You'd have nowhere to build, nothing to build it with, and everything would be on fire.

[UMK]

Parkas have -20% global work penalty, isn't that nice ?

Has anyone tried flat tundra and survived ? I mean on 100% difficulty.

I did. Had to switch to 5% Phoebe just to give me some time to haul all things to base and sell all slaves. Sniper rifles are your friends.

[Mathenaut]

For colony sieges, you need to be innovative. Send a couple of your best shooters and use hard cover (like a wall). This will be easier if you have snipers of your own, but hunting rifles will work well enough.

The idea is to abuse how they are arranged. You'll usually have a couple of raiders dwindling a little closer than the others, so you can pick them off while skirting the range of the siege snipers.

Alternatively, you can just double-team the enemy snipers that have an interesting habit of not going for cover.

What ultimately does it, however, is that the siege group will just up and raid the colony after they lose a couple of guys. Just need to pop that balloon and then let them flood into your defenses.

[rtiger]

I once had the sadistic idea to deploy in an area where it was 50 below, in December, on a flat map. Even building my first room atop a steam geyser wasn't enough to keep everyone warm. Also, at those temperatures, parkas don't help you. Neither does cold lover.

My most recent map I deployed in an area with an average temperature 20 below. 5% phoebe, but a flat map, and no rerolls of who you start with... I ended up with nobody that could research, which is probably gonna bite me later.

[b0rsuk]

Is this just me, or mortars are generally not worth it using yourself ? "Shooting" skill at 20 doesn't seem to improve accuracy. I guess I'd need 2-3 to have a measurable effect, and that's 500-750 steel.

[Cazakatari]

Personally I've only ever found mortars to be useful in a group of at least 5.  5-10 become devastating to sieges and especially tribal attacks that wait first.  You might get lucky with less, but especially on sieges the size of their camp is so much smaller than the size of mortar "error". 

It kinda sucks because you can't afford all the steel for the mortars and 20-50 shells per attack until late game, and unless you're making serious bank you have to be in a mountain area to have that much available in the first place.  Mountain areas are just too good

On the subject of parkas, I know that if you go to the REALLY cold places then you'll be in situations where they aren't enough.  Regardless, even going down a little below freezing most people aren't going to be happy outside in it no matter how good your parka is.  Of all the people I've met, the only ones that don't mind it either grew up or lived for years in a place that regularly got that cold.  Even some of them don't like it either.

I don't think parkas should necessarily be nerfed in the protection against hypotheria, but I wouldn't object to seeing a larger range of when a colonist gets moody for being in the cold.  Or are those two intertwined in the code?

[b0rsuk]

That's plain mortars. Have you tried 3 incendiary mortars ? Sounds crazy, but might just work.

[Mathenaut]

Well, consider that you may eventually just need Parkas made out of leather instead of cloth. Offer much better protection.

[Darkhymn]

[...]You'd have nowhere to build, nothing to build it with, and everything would be on fire.

Well, at least it would be easy to keep warm!

[lusername]

Personally I've only ever found mortars to be useful in a group of at least 5.  5-10 become devastating to sieges and especially tribal attacks that wait first.

Yeah, you basically need massed batteries if you want to actually hit anything. I would not recommend using them against infantry groups even if you can hit them, though. If you use them to bombard infantry-only groups, any injured that you can potentially recruit will almost certainly bleed out before you can retrieve them, and basically, you're preventing them from bringing the loot to you.