Screenshots of your base/fort

[bigfuzzy]

Hi guys,
Been playing this game for a while and loving it.  What I'm curious about is how others design their bases.  I have my way of doing things, but was curious as to how others do it.
So, could you please post some screen shots showing the layout/setup of your bases so I can have some "oooh, that's smart" moments!
Thanks!

PS sorry if this topic exists, i tried searching before hand and only found the killbox thread.

[Darkhymn]

My last game. Desert Mountains, Cassandra Rough. I'm not in love with the design, it was an attempt to try something slightly different. It would never have worked on Challenge, but it worked alright, and some of the individual elements of the design are very much the norm for me. I always have the two med bays together, I always set up my hydroponics in roughly that configuration, my kitchen/dining/freezer always look like that, the prisoner wing is always mostly separate from the colonist rooms, and I generally tend to prefer utility to looks.

[attachment deleted due to age]

[bigfuzzy]

Thanks Darkhymn!
That's exactly what I hoped for.
Couple of questions. I tend to put the bigger beds in individual Col rooms, I see you don't. Is there no benefit in the long run? Also, I see the one plant and light in those rooms, but can't tell what that third thing is.

Love your kitchen/dining/fridge layout, thanks!

What's your reason for 2 med bays? I usually have one large one.. but had been thinking to switch to several small ones..
Thanks for the hydroponnics layout..

Also, I didn't know that you could place solar panels in front of your wind turbines.. I thought they'd block the wind.. again thanks!

[Apophis]

This is my colony right now:



I like replacing the rock walls with stone conduit walls.
My growing is outside, but protected with a killbox and I have enough food for months.



The double walls at the trading beacon are because of alpha 9b, back then it was necessary if you wanted to keep the room frozen.

Last of all, you can see the solar panels, but those are just a remnant from when I hadn't found enough geothermal generators yet, I don't need them.

[loc978]

I think my most recent (jungle, mountain, only taking psychopath colonists) base is rather interesting:


Currently in the middle of Randy doing his best to kill me. Haven't finished cleaning up one raid, and another one and a siege landed just about simultaneously... while half of my people are down with Malaria (he even waited until it reached the serious stage and around 90% immunity progression).

Still, I have these:
http://i.imgur.com/g1HvJnh.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/jkl6fyV.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/6KYfxNS.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/ehRRgp2.jpg

*edit*
modlist

[chaosmage]

Thats my first colony built in quite cold region (up to -20), even with air conditioning for cold lovers.
Currently there is a lack of electricity as there is no space to build solar panels nearby.
During summer time its not that much space in front of the base to build enough fields with potatoes or corns.

My own development: sandstone chunks are placed right on the base entrance in order to slow down mechanoids and turrets have enough time to shoot for a while.

[Boboid]

Gah! People you've got to fix your hydro setups, you can get so much more out of them!

[Darkhymn]

Thanks Darkhymn!
That's exactly what I hoped for.
Couple of questions. I tend to put the bigger beds in individual Col rooms, I see you don't. Is there no benefit in the long run? Also, I see the one plant and light in those rooms, but can't tell what that third thing is.

Love your kitchen/dining/fridge layout, thanks!

What's your reason for 2 med bays? I usually have one large one.. but had been thinking to switch to several small ones..
Thanks for the hydroponnics layout..

Also, I didn't know that you could place solar panels in front of your wind turbines.. I thought they'd block the wind.. again thanks!

I'm sure there's a benefit to the nicer beds, I just generally don't use them and haven't noticed the lack. The third object in the bedrooms is a heater. Not sure if it really needs to be there or not, but I'd hate for my colonists to develop hypothermia in bed!
The second med bay was in fact my prisoner med bay. I forgot to switch it back after a nasty mechanoid attack that had a lot of my colonists laid up. I've been building my med bays a bit larger, myself, in order to accommodate more injured.
Glad you picked up a couple of ideas from it. The turbines are taller than the solar arrays, so they aren't blocked. Thank goodness. I could never have generated enough power for that base otherwise, mostly due to inefficient design. I've picked up a couple of small mods to help me manage power better, along with having a few ideas for power optimization in general. I love my kitchen/dining/ freezer design. Simple, yet effective. The only change I made in my next game is thicker walls for insulation.
Note that you can actually get two more hydroponics bays around each light without losing access to any plants, but I find it less attractive, so I tend to sacrifice a tine bit of efficiency for the sake of looks there.
Also, note the multiple beacons, one indoors for storage (an undocumented change in A9 is that they work indoors), and one outdoors for deliveries to land in, otherwise they just kind of land... Wherever.

My own development: sandstone chunks are placed right on the base entrance in order to slow down mechanoids and turrets have enough time to shoot for a while.

I used to do this as well, I'd put a "critical" chunk stockpile around the entrances to the base, though I did it mostly to slow down the tribal suicide bumrushes that always blow up my turrets!

[kic]

This is my current base (I'm still playing alpha 8, trying to finish this game). Yes, only 3 colonists (the originals) in year 2. Cannibals-only--no one else (loc978, you clearly found more psychopaths than I have cannibals, which is to say I've found zero).

Pretty straightforward, really. The killbox was a rushed design, but it has proven effective. I just switched to extreme (on Cassandra) and survived the first extreme raid (previous raids at challenging and rough proved harmless). No solar, no batteries, just thermal and a small wind farm. Have survived numerous raids, sieges, and two ancient ship parts to this point.

I'm fairly certain I could've built a spaceship by now, but I'm more interested in seeing how long they can last.

[Teague]

This was where I felt this colony was complete. Psychically Deaf colony, mountain base. A 3rd geo underground off the screenshot to the left. Lots of art to maintain the +10 bonus, or at least the +5.

I like this killbox because of the slate blocks preventing item drops but still slowing down opponents, the four dummy turrets are to encourage melee's to not attack the others. No colonist deaths, but that is not much of a surprise considering they never fought.

Next improvement I am going to make to killbox in next play through, is to intentionally collapse the killing center so that there is open roof there and that is where I will get trade goods from - and the constant seigers might help me defend (unlikely but possible)

You can click the image for a larger photo.

[winnsanity]

Gah! People you've got to fix your hydro setups, you can get so much more out of them!

Some people like to make them look nice and neat

[Darkhymn]

Gah! People you've got to fix your hydro setups, you can get so much more out of them!

Some people like to make them look nice and neat

Neat and efficient don't necessarily have to be incompatible. My design above will get you four more tables, with every one fully covered, than those rows, which will have some unlit plants.

[chaosmage]

I just switched to extreme (on Cassandra) and survived the first extreme raid (previous raids at challenging and rough proved harmless).

Do you get fun during these raids?
After building a "killbox" (found this word here) the game seems to be quite boring, as my colonists never get out of the nutshell. Only to counterstrike the raiding party with mortars.

[DNK]

Cassandra 130%, my 4th or so playthrough of the game. I'm still learning how to manage it, but I'm also not 100% focused on efficiency. I like to just let it grow organically and also be a little realistic with things, so sometimes that means creating walk spaces when I don't actually need to.

A few notes:
1) I put thought into the electrical system, so I usually have multiple circuits with switches in the same area. My base here has one 24/7 circuit for essentials like coolers, heaters, and hydro stuff, and a second circuit for night lighting (and I use the timed switches in that mod). I also have a separate switch for turrets, actually two since I have redundancy in my turret circuit in case one blows or a fire takes out a section, so the whole thing downstream still works. There's also another circuit to light my mortar area and power the autodoors there. You'll also note the far left circuit, another 24/7 that powers the Alamo cooler (with food aplenty), and can be a backup power source should the line to the Alamo from the right side get cut (which it usually does in a raid), and also can be connected to the rest of the grid FROM the Alamo (via a switch) to resupply the freezer and essentials should the cut happen outside. Redundancy everything!

2) Regarding that, there's a lot of redundancy in batteries also. There's the primary 3-battery pack next to the comms console, plus another backup in the freezer - this one is disconnected from the main grid until needed. And there's two additional backup backups in the Alamo, also disconnected by switch until absolutely needed. The only thing I can't defend against is a solar flare, but you'll note the following:

3) There's a room full of bricks in the hallway near the prison. If a solar flare erupts during a raid, I can throw up a ton of barricades before the enemies get through my various granite doors, and that should hold them off long enough for the flare to pass. Worst case, I can tunnel out the back of the Alamo and run for the hills, circle back around, and draw them into my gate's mutli-turret defenses once power returns. I might lose a few of the slower guys, but the colony will survive!

4) I use stone blocks to slow down enemies approaching the defenses (and in the Alamo). I tried to avoid creating an unrealistic "kill box", but there's still a very painful "kill rectangle" they have to get through.

5) I set turrets up at 6-tile intervals on the inside hallways. They explode and take out a lot of enemies that way.

6) I have more silver than I know what to do with now. I think I'll edit the save to make it harder or start mass buying power armors. Probably both.

[Darkhymn]

-snip-

Heck of a power layout. I'm just starting to play with power efficiency, switches, redundancy, and banks of batteries separate from the main grid for emergency power (particularly to the freezers and climate control) myself. I love how neatly organized your stockpiles are, rather than the giant omnipiles I often wind up with!