New action "Take cover" for raiders

[RickyMartini]

Who knows this situation?

Suppose you have just started your colony in the open field and your 5 colonists all with ranged weapons now have to defend against 10 pirates. When the raid starts you place your 5 colonists hidden behind corners or sandbags and hope for a cool gunfight.

But because you have only 5 colonists and more pirates only 5 pirates can have the action "shoot at xy colonist" and the others rush to the nearest furniture/turret or other objects and thus expose themself to be gunned down.

When a raid group consists of only ranged fighters I would love to see them also waiting behind cover and try to get a good shot at my colonists. I remember having countless raid from the tribes and while I had snipers behind sandbags even archers would just overrun me because they had their "demolish standing lamp" task or "demolish door" and then would start a meele fight with their bows.

So to put it simple a new action for ranged attackers should be implemented called "hiding behind cover". With that a fight could look like a real gunfight where it's more important for the enemy sniper to get a good hiding place. It just hurts sometimes when an enemy carrying a M-24 rushes into my turrets.

[ManWithNoName]

I had a raid yesterday on a new colony i just waited them out till they got hungry and retreated.

As for tribes rushing thats when you tell your guys to melee fight rather than shoot, would be nice if this was automatic but, it isn't.

[RickyMartini]

I had a raid yesterday on a new colony i just waited them out till they got hungry and retreated.

As for tribes rushing thats when you tell your guys to melee fight rather than shoot, would be nice if this was automatic but, it isn't.

Yeah thats true but I don't really like seeing a m-24 against bows fight.

[ManWithNoName]

I dont like fighting pirates when they have m24s and i only have a lee enfield, a glock and some turrets as they can shoot at my guys and turrets without taking damage but hey, that's the game.

Besides if the AI can rush with the amount of guys they have and do some good damage unless you have a good defense then they obviously get mowed down. Is this a fair fight? Cause not, but there never are many fair fights these day's and if you were to fall out of space stranded on other planet you never know how advanced they are. This is probably why you get tribes people (basic), pirates (mid tech) and mechanoids (advanced) then whatever other factions you may add yourself.

[RickyMartini]

Sure but I'm talking about the mechanics of how raiders think. In what situation would it ever be appropriate for an m-24 mercenary to just rush trough the defenses because his task is set to "break the door"   

I'd like to see some kind of replacement for that like "take cover behind rock" "take cover behind sandbag" "take cover behind wall" just like the colonists do too.

[200Down]

They do and will already use cover. It's an issue with how often things are checked. Instead of checking every say... 3 seconds to see where they should move to get a shot on your guys... they'll check only ever 8-10 seconds which turnes out having them running INSIDE your base to kill the cook lmfao.... If that makes any sense whatsoever. prolly not eh

[200Down]

And it doesn't seem to be of very high priority to get use cover ither. Advancing on your guys is more important than staying alive it seems. So yea, in that light I do agree something needs to be done there.

[BetaSpectre]

If too much priority is given to go to cover then Boxing traps can be abused for maxiumum damage.

I used to kill like 50-30 raiders per turret because they'd walk up to my sand bagged turrets.
Then the turret goes BOOM. And dead Raider team.

IMO Turrets going Boom is more effective then the guns actually shooting if used right.

[200Down]

Yea totally agree with that too. Not sure where the answer lies honestly. There's processing limits to keep in check too so eh... figure it out man it's all on you haha

And the boom turrets always seemed cheep in so many ways. Don't get me started 

[ManWithNoName]

Boxing traps still easy to make, just make a 1 tile wide walk way to their death then they can not take cover anywhere 

And yep turret explosions are effective against tribes men and jaffa kree, mabe if the ai was told to run from the explosion it be sort of a fix or they move to the next target. They could even prioritize colonists over turrets while attackers with long range weapons shoot turrets or even make it a random selection between colonists and turrets.

[Listy]

I dont like fighting pirates when they have m24s and i only have a lee enfield, a glock and some turrets as they can shoot at my guys and turrets without taking damage but hey, that's the game.

Last time I encountered that, from a besieging group my response was to grab every one and charge human wave style into Pistol range. I also made sure that my brain dead and pacifists went first as so got targeted first.

Worked surprisingly well.

[ManWithNoName]

I just let my guys do jobs at the base (mining, research, growing etc) and after a while the pirates got bore of shooting my turret that kept getting repaired and walked back home.

[skullywag]

Again its the proximity of global screwing the gameplay over, if the enemies checked everynow and then for closer more valid targets (and prioritize colonists) it would remove the idiots chasing down those damn doors. However checking requires more processing so performance needs tgo be taken into account, I believe a small tweak to allow them to check if they have targeted something other than a colonist every rare tick (250 ticks) would be enough to make the zerg less ridiculous and need the player to implement a more tactical defense.

[RickyMartini]

Well my original idea was that besides having attack tasks a task could also be to seek cover first. With that an enemy sniper would also just wait before advancing and thus making him a bit more challenging.