Remove Turrets

[SaintD]

The problem for me in removing turrets is that you need them to tank for you.

I'm gonna step into the line of fire and say that as it stands at the moment, the combat system pretty much sucks. It's far too horrifically luck based, so unless everyone is firing miniguns at long range, it always favours large numbers of people and high rates of fire, so you have more chances to hit. The actual effective difference between a skill 7 and skill 20 guy is such that I'll just take two skill 7 guys and put out more shots, because I've watched guys who are apparently 'planet class master' shots definitively lose a firefight with their survival rifle against a skill 1 guy with a pistol. Or just the usual hilarity of spending literally hours firing shots at unconcerned animals. This gets even worse because of how potentially resilient your enemies can be, requiring a truly stupid amount of firepower to put down, and how non-fatal wounds are meaningless to the enemy (your colonists didn't spawn just for this battle, unlike them).

Oh, and then it gets even worse because morale is nothing more than an on/off switch where the entire raid runs off after a certain amount of casualties, so they will happily run across open ground, be mostly missed by your colonists, often shrug off a lot of firepower because non-fatal wounds simply don't matter, and immediately start causing serious harm in close combat. While their friends are still shooting, with more close combatants hording up, etc.

This combat system works under VERY SPECIFIC circumstances. It creates a nice little firefight scenario when two sides both play ball and have a cool looking, small scale firefight from cover, with minor wounds and stuff. It completely falls apart when the numbers get too big, when melee exists AT ALL....you need the turrets as meat shields because you just don't have anything else to use as a meat shield and keep your colonists safe. You also need them simply for the DPS, because you still need to actually stop all those enemies in a massive raid. It starts breaking down into an unfair game of sheer maths that you can't win because mass combat and melee is being performed by a system which is intended for small scale firefights. There's no configuration of colonist tactics that lets your ten guys win a fight where sixty a-holes with clubs and spears can just run up and beat them to death in a horde despite the presence of machine guns and assault rifles.

[Jamini]

The problem for me in removing turrets is that you need them to tank for you.

I'm gonna step into the line of fire and say that as it stands at the moment, the combat system pretty much sucks. It's far too horrifically luck based, so unless everyone is firing miniguns at long range, it always favours large numbers of people and high rates of fire, so you have more chances to hit. The actual effective difference between a skill 7 and skill 20 guy is such that I'll just take two skill 7 guys and put out more shots, because I've watched guys who are apparently 'planet class master' shots definitively lose a firefight with their survival rifle against a skill 1 guy with a pistol. Or just the usual hilarity of spending literally hours firing shots at unconcerned animals. This gets even worse because of how potentially resilient your enemies can be, requiring a truly stupid amount of firepower to put down, and how non-fatal wounds are meaningless to the enemy (your colonists didn't spawn just for this battle, unlike them).

Oh, and then it gets even worse because morale is nothing more than an on/off switch where the entire raid runs off after a certain amount of casualties, so they will happily run across open ground, be mostly missed by your colonists, often shrug off a lot of firepower because non-fatal wounds simply don't matter, and immediately start causing serious harm in close combat. While their friends are still shooting, with more close combatants hording up, etc.

This combat system works under VERY SPECIFIC circumstances. It creates a nice little firefight scenario when two sides both play ball and have a cool looking, small scale firefight from cover, with minor wounds and stuff. It completely falls apart when the numbers get too big, when melee exists AT ALL....you need the turrets as meat shields because you just don't have anything else to use as a meat shield and keep your colonists safe. You also need them simply for the DPS, because you still need to actually stop all those enemies in a massive raid. It starts breaking down into an unfair game of sheer maths that you can't win because mass combat and melee is being performed by a system which is intended for small scale firefights. There's no configuration of colonist tactics that lets your ten guys win a fight where sixty a-holes with clubs and spears can just run up and beat them to death in a horde despite the presence of machine guns and assault rifles.

Completely untrue! Actually. For a number of reasons.

1. War Animals
-Taming a few expendable animals (Squirrels, Boomalopes, and Boomrats are especially good for this) explicitly for tanking raids works wonders. While I don't advise you have your production or hauling animals on the frontlines (Though Elephants are utterly terrifying war animals if you can get a few of them) if you need cheap, expendable, tasty tanks. They are utterly perfect.

2. Shield-Using melee
-As long as you aren't fighting a force that can instantly pop shields (Snipers, Shotguns, Heavy Charge Rifles) A shield-user with a good melee weapon can distract the bad guys long enough for a well-trained sniper squad to pick off the more dangerous enemies in a group. This tactic is especially strong against mechanoids. (Just watch out for sythers).

Ideally you do no want your shield user to actually fight, as an unlucky crit can make you lose a colonist

3.Bunkers

Around your main gates, and in the field, you can set up fortified positions to snipe out enemies before they even get to your killbox. As long as you are wary of enemy snipers and greatbow users, it's an easy way to get many free shots off on your raiders. Remember: It takes the bad guys a long time to break through a stone door, and there isn't any limit on how many you can have in a row. Just order the doors kept open until the raid comes so you don't slow down your colonists too much.

4. Choke-points, Obstacles, Grenades

Choke-points and explosions are a very powerful combination. Using rubble and sandbags (or both!) to slow down invaders is very powerful, especially when coupled with a few choke points. Utilizing one-door "bunkers" that your defenders can use to fire from and retreat behind when melee raiders get close (or if ranged raiders draw a bead on your pawns) can make or break a defense... even without turrets.

[Psyckosama]

I'll agree to removing turrets from the game when we get the ability to build machine gun nests, go prone behind a sandbag barrier, and counter attack enemy colonies.

Until then, how about we keep turrets and he removes sappers instead?

[Kajin]

Nah, I like sappers. They keep you on your toes.

[b0rsuk]

The problem for me in removing turrets is that you need them to tank for you.
(...)
This combat system works under VERY SPECIFIC circumstances. It creates a nice little firefight scenario
(...)
There's no configuration of colonist tactics that lets your ten guys win a fight where sixty a-holes with clubs and spears can just run up and beat them to death in a horde despite the presence of machine guns and assault rifles.

Look what happens when you remove turrets AND reduce raid sizes. Your whole argument topples like a house of cards!

10 vs 60 is still worth a try. There are weapons and tools that are usually overlooked, like incendiary launcher, incendiary IED, even molotovs. They can simultaneously set multiple enemies on fire. And I've beaten a much bigger tribal raid by... having a field outside. I planted too much and some of my corn didn't make it before autumn frost came. Tribals entertained themselves by igniting my field. This meant they didn't arrive at my bunker at once, but one at a time.

If anything makes "strength in numbers" too powerful, it's the hit mechanic. When someone is hit, he's briefly stunned. This makes it easy for squirrels to stunlock and kill a dude in power armor.

[Kajin]

Look what happens when you remove turrets AND reduce raid sizes. Your whole argument topples like a house of cards!

That makes everything less epic, though.

I stand by what I said before, though. No auto turrets unless they're nerfed (no damaging explosion that takes out half the raid, cut hp by a significant margin) and made a rare and/or expensive item bought from traders. Change player made turrets to manned stationary fortifications that provide defensive bonuses to the pilot.

[Toggle]

Oh yeah, and really... We can't remove turrets just for stuff as simple as manhunters. Middle of night, animal by my base goes crazy? Do I really need to draft my colonist to go shoot it so a squirrel doesn't destroy my entire colony? A turret would kill it quick, blocking it from infiltrating my base and doing anything or waking up colonists.

[b0rsuk]

I stand by what I said before, though. No auto turrets unless they're nerfed buffed (no damaging explosion that takes out half the raid, cut hp by a significant margin) and made a rare and/or expensive item bought from traders. Change player made turrets to manned stationary fortifications that provide defensive bonuses to the pilot.

No explosion would be a buff, too. You'd be able to cluster them. It would be a nerf if it was changed to an EMP explosion.

Oh yeah, and really... We can't remove turrets just for stuff as simple as manhunters. Middle of night, animal by my base goes crazy? Do I really need to draft my colonist to go shoot it so a squirrel doesn't destroy my entire colony? A turret would kill it quick, blocking it from infiltrating my base and doing anything or waking up colonists.

Manhunters don't attack structures. Do your colonists sleep outside ?

[Kajin]

I stand by what I said before, though. No auto turrets unless they're nerfed buffed (no damaging explosion that takes out half the raid, cut hp by a significant margin) and made a rare and/or expensive item bought from traders. Change player made turrets to manned stationary fortifications that provide defensive bonuses to the pilot.

No explosion would be a buff, too. You'd be able to cluster them. It would be a nerf if it was changed to an EMP explosion.

I never found the explosions to be much of a problem, really. In fact I'd consider them a great asset against melee invaders. The cut in hp and the difficulty in acquiring due to price and rarity, I think, would mostly offset any advantage you'd gain by trying to get a large number of them together. Idea behind my suggestion on that would be to make auto turrets more of a supporting type deal. Something that's nice to have but not really something you need. Real defense would come from manned turret fixtures and other hard defenses like bunkers and pillboxes.

I'd go so far as to say that if you have nine or ten of them you'd likely already be pretty far into late game and whatever defense they added would be outweighed by whatever else you had on hand already. Just something nice to have, really.

Though I do like the idea of an EMP burst as a side effect? Or maybe just a general flash bang stun that blinds colonists nearby for one or two rounds of combat. Equal to one or two smacks from a melee opponent keeping them from firing.

[Toggle]

Animals that went insane do. And the point was less of the danger and more of the fact it's below the colony to even bother handling them.

[Jamini]

Why would it be below your colonists to handle an insane animal? Anyone (even a worker) can handle small things like squirrels, rabbits, etc. Larger animals are a bit more dangerous, but one colonist with a gun (like say... your hunters?) can down them without difficulty. Plus, free food.

[FMJ Penguin]

Kinda thinkin no explosive turrets at all. Not really even sure what the point ever was besides allowing you to use them as make shift land mines which we no longer need. I really do like that idea of turrets somehow interfering with each other on a "frequency" level better as far as forcing you to spread them out a bit for auto-turrets anyways.

Even then, I'm not sure that would feel all that "fair". May just feel like a douchey way to limit player choice too. shrugs

[RemingtonRyder]

I've experimented with changing the default turret explosion to a less damaging 'zap' which causes electrical burns to everyone nearby when the turret goes down. Yet to see how it pans out in typical gameplay, but I'll get there, when I'm not burning anything that moves in Skyrim.

[FMJ Penguin]

I've experimented with changing the default turret explosion to a less damaging 'zap' which causes electrical burns to everyone nearby when the turret goes down. Yet to see how it pans out in typical gameplay, but I'll get there, when I'm not burning anything that moves in Skyrim.

blasphemy!! haha

That sounds awesome though! I wouldn't be able to wait to test it out 

[Jamini]

Also, my current colony is showing how irreverent turrets can be with a well-designed defense.



So far this design has repelled three fair-sized raids, one sapper attack, and a group of mechanoid droppodders (pictured in the stockpile here). We've had exactly one breach, where two shielded swordsmen broke through the serpentine while it was still under construction.

I plan to expand the serpentine to triple its current size, in addition to a second defensive wall around my farming area once the civilian area is fully built up. I may incorporate some traps and turrets in the field as well, once the base itself is done. (A generator surrounded by stone walls, then four turrets is a nice breakwall for raids)