[Alpha 11] Sappers. Challenge accepted.

[Adamiks]

"May 11
The Sapper raid strategy and pawn duties now basically work. The raid spawns with at least one sapper (who has grenades), paths into the colony through walls and avoiding turret fields of fire, and uses explosives and mining to pass any walls or other blockers in the way. Still lots of cleanup work to do on this.
Created escort duty and attendant AI behaviors. Non-sappers can now escort the sappers.
Misc fixes and adjustments."

[JimmyAgnt007]

This should be interesting.  Im one of those Dwarf Fortress type players who builds a mountain base.  I might need to go deeper before expanding my base to have a nice thick buffer of rock.  Also this can ruin killboxes but we shall see. 

[Rahjital]

Not all raids will have sappers, and even if they did, there are still mad animal raids so it looks like killboxes will still be useful but you will need to defend the rest of your base as well.

[EscapeZeppelin]

Back when raiders used to throw grenades constantly I would build exterior walls with an internal baffle system so that it would take several direct hits to actually penetrate the whole thing. It also meant that it was much harder for the relatively inaccurate grenades to hit the correct spot every time unless the raider was willing to stand directly next to the explosion. It usually ended up looking like this:

WWWWWWWWWWW
W   W   W   W   W   W
   W   W   W   W   W 
WWWWWWWWWWW

[RemingtonRyder]

Sappers won't get anywhere near my walls. Unless Legolas runs out of arrows.

[jerome736]

Wait arrows go over walls?? 

[Adamiks]

Who fucked my mom?! Grampy cat! Go, attack!

[Rahjital]

Sappers won't get anywhere near my walls. Unless Legolas runs out of arrows.

Hopefully he's learned a thing or two since the last time he tried to stop a sapper...

[billycop32]

yeah no. it sounds like there is NO viable defense against sappers. espically for mountain colonies which i prefer. make sappers a optional piece just C4 was after it was discovered to be too op... 

[Tynan]

yeah no. it sounds like there is NO viable defense against sappers.

I'll just copy a response I wrote on reddit.

it's more like I want you to need to enact a really complex strategy in pursuit of your perfect safe colony.
The problem with killboxes in my view isn't that they work and they're useful. It's that they defeat every kind of enemy you'll come across. It's a single mindless strategy that solves half the game - a degenerate strategy.
This change won't affect most raids. Sieges will still be sieges. Frontal assault will still be frontal assaults. What I've done is add an additional strategy to the library. So your killboxes will still defeat those old strategies as they do now - but simply building one giant killbox won't solve everything forever. You'll have to come up with a combination of defenses that can defeat all the different strategies that the raiders will use against you. As I said above, "You'll still be able to build up a mega-defense. It'll just have to be a bit more impressive and nuanced than a single room full of turrets and sandbags. It'll have to look like a fortress, not a goofy video game AI exploit trap."

[GamerGuy]

I love the new raid strategy that will be put in,

So yes challenge accepted!

[Listy]

yeah no. it sounds like there is NO viable defense against sappers.

I'll just copy a response I wrote on reddit.

Question:

Since I joined the game we've had four items for defence.
1: Turrets
2: Mortars
3: Sandbags
4: Barricades such as the Old equipment rack.

Of which we've lost #4. #2 is useless even in large numbers, #1 requires unbelievable amounts of power.

That tied in with the new AI that avoids turret explosions, and the massive power requirements needed for turrets. Its making life harder for the defence, especially if you're a long term player. I mean I'm on year 2 with a no kill box build and already the tribal horde reaches my lines. I can't realistically add more turrets due to power consumption. I'm beginning to worry about the infinitely scaling assaults.

When do we get some more toys to help defend ourselves?  A fougasse or Command mine which activates when powered, a HMG like a Vickers gun? You know something to help us fight off the bad guys, which preferably doesn't draw massive amounts of power.

[billycop32]

yeah no. it sounds like there is NO viable defense against sappers.

I'll just copy a response I wrote on reddit.

it's more like I want you to need to enact a really complex strategy in pursuit of your perfect safe colony.
The problem with killboxes in my view isn't that they work and they're useful. It's that they defeat every kind of enemy you'll come across. It's a single mindless strategy that solves half the game - a degenerate strategy.
This change won't affect most raids. Sieges will still be sieges. Frontal assault will still be frontal assaults. What I've done is add an additional strategy to the library. So your killboxes will still defeat those old strategies as they do now - but simply building one giant killbox won't solve everything forever. You'll have to come up with a combination of defenses that can defeat all the different strategies that the raiders will use against you. As I said above, "You'll still be able to build up a mega-defense. It'll just have to be a bit more impressive and nuanced than a single room full of turrets and sandbags. It'll have to look like a fortress, not a goofy video game AI exploit trap."

yeah that's great. but that wasn't my point. here it is.

uses explosives and mining to pass any walls or other blockers

if i'm reading this right then they will mine streight through and completely bypass a traditional (not killbox) defense. allow me to continue a little while longer on this point.

meet my defense line. it can easily be taken down, especially from the west and north west.
if sappers decided to blow a hole the wall on the west side, i'd be thrilled because that's a new challenge. But if they just drill their way straight into my personal quarters area.... i'll just reset before the raid. each time. that's not cool.
remove the mining part and we're dandy.

[Tynan]

Versus that defense they'd go straight into the turrets (trying to find an area with fewer overlapping fields of fire).

They won't mine dozens of cells of rock just to avoid a turret or two.

[billycop32]

ok good. that works. is there a hard limit on how much rock?