Base defence help.

[Listy]

Yeah this has been something I've commented on before, but its bugging me.

First I don't want to go full dwarf under a mountain with a killbox manned by turrets. I prefer my colonists doing the fighting. To that end to overcome the spiralling numbers I need to prepare the ground to give my colonists a massive advantage.

Part of that used to be plasteel equipment racks to create embrasures, and liberal use of Trigger happy guy's and gals with grenades. Recently on my work save file (which is a different layout and uses massively more turrets and works vastly better) I've been using molotov's.

Here's the issue though:
http://i.imgur.com/nnsy3yA.jpg

Normally between the top double walls I'd have the equipment rack to prevent enemies closing, that option is no longer an available.
You'll note the date, end of year 2, and I can't stop the enemy tribals, what chance do I have in a year? Previously I was getting a base with less manpower to nearly double figures without difficulty.

So simply I think this colony is bust and I need to start again. But with the removal of Grenade weapons as a viable part integrated defence, and no way to block the enemy I'm still struggling to see how to stop the bad guys just swamping through my lines. So I need ideas short of a traditional kill box. Anyone found a way to control the enemy in fashion you want yet? Or simply how do I convince Tynan to give us back our barricades?

[Boboid]

There are a couple of embrasure mods floating around that you might want to try.

[BetaSpectre]

Lol I chop off a leg too organs don't rot for some reason. And them prisoners can attack and make good pirate bait.

As for this GL tbh now it still feels like a kill box just now you've got mobile turrets

[Goo Poni]

My way was giving the Lee Enfield 60 range and a cycle time, aiming and cooldown together, of 2 seconds. Give that bolt action a god damn workout and fire, fire, fire. My only problem was overkill. Unless you pause every other second and manually give everyone targets over and over, they just target the closest thing. So a line of colonists set up behind walls to fire into a wide open field with zero cover means that when the closest person in the meat-train dies, everyone's aim resets. A real pain in the ass with people using much slower firing weapons with 4-6s aimtimes. Raiders can actually just die fast enough that they never shoot, not that it slows the raider train down, or worse, the zombie train. The zombie train is nigh-unstoppable and is the reason I gave the Lee Enfield absurd range in the first place. Nothing short of massed explosive weaponry stops the zombie rapetrains that form from 2-300 zombies OR MORE stopping the game for several seconds as they all spawn in.

Playing on a Ludeonicrous map, I hollowed out an enormous area of the mountain and made that my entrance, sealing the original entrance behind 6-thick walls to deter even the most stubborn firebomber. Supports holding up the roof dot the expanse leading to the fortified line and offer raiders the only refuge against my colonists. However, the supports are fragile due to being made only of humble wood and they just never seem to be sturdy enough to withstand the enormous firefights that erupt....

[Xav]

I have found that equipping a few melee fighters with shields can go a long way in stopping all attacks, including snipers and full on tribal attacks.

[FridayBiology]

try using Weapons rack as well between your columns  as they'll allow shooting but prevent passage. Also maybe think about making area behind defenses a strawberry patch to force colonists to eat just before a battle.

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[Kagemusha12]

I have found that equipping a few melee fighters with shields can go a long way in stopping all attacks, including snipers and full on tribal attacks.

I agree ...
the soldiers which fight with long range weapons are usually rather bad in melee ...
often they will already lose the moral check if they see one or more of your melee fighters storming against their position ... and even if they fight back in melee ... well, they fight with fists, your melee fighters on the other hand with something sharp or heavy, which makes the combat rather short

[Boboid]

try using Weapons rack as well between your columns  as they'll allow shooting but prevent passage. Also maybe think about making area behind defenses a strawberry patch to force colonists to eat just before a battle.

Weapon racks are passable in A9 - pawns can walk over them.

OP even points out that it's no longer an option.


You can use Solar Panels or Wind Turbines as neither of those are passable but you can shoot over the top of them. They're not exactly ideal though.
Those are your only vanilla embrasure options though which is why I suggested a mod.

[b0rsuk]

I imagine solar panels are impassable because pawns don't want to step on them. It could break them, or at least make them dirty. If we had a "force move" command, we could make panels passable, at the cost of damaging panels. Most importantly, raiders wouldn't care, they would go right through them.

I think we should either get a proper shootable-but-impassable obstacle like barbed wire (takes reduced damage from ranged weapons), or tricks should be removed. I hate reading about stuff like weapon cabinets used as obstacles, or sandbags only used for slowing movement.

[Listy]

I have found that equipping a few melee fighters with shields can go a long way in stopping all attacks, including snipers and full on tribal attacks.

I've got 4 in that base set up. Before hand you used to be able to force enemies to go through them, not now.

[Boboid]

I think we should either get a proper shootable-but-impassable obstacle like barbed wire (takes reduced damage from ranged weapons), or tricks should be removed. I hate reading about stuff like weapon cabinets used as obstacles, or sandbags only used for slowing movement.

Just because you hate reading about it doesn't mean it's not entirely reasonable or in fact, totally logical.

There's nothing particularly "Tricky" about wanting an obstacle you can't walk through but can shoot over, nor is there anything overly exploitative about using objects that slow pawns, to slow pawns... because you need to slow pawns!

" I hate hearing about tricks like planting potatoes because people need food, I think food should be removed or we should get a more viable alternative "
Doesn't quite have the same ring to it

[b0rsuk]

Just because you hate reading about it doesn't mean it's not entirely reasonable or in fact, totally logical.

There's nothing particularly "Tricky" about wanting an obstacle you can't walk through but can shoot over, nor is there anything overly exploitative about using objects that slow pawns, to slow pawns... because you need to slow pawns!

" I hate hearing about tricks like planting potatoes because people need food, I think food should be removed or we should get a more viable alternative "
Doesn't quite have the same ring to it

The tricky part is using a piece of furniture for something it wasn't designed to. And these aren't even makeshift barricades, that's designing a bunker with wardrobes as a main player.

Also, bad analogy. Potatoes sound like something you can eat. Try planting power conduits to eat them.

[Boboid]

Well you can't really complain about rubble/slag/sandbags slowing things down - their 2 features are cover and a movement speed modifier.

Using a piece of furniture as a barricade sounds perfectly reasonable to me.
You're making them out of stone or a futuristic alloy