Remove Turrets

[zandadoum]

but there is certainly others who do like turrets, why screw them when the solution is so easy?

God mode would avoid screwing everyone also - but it isn't part of the regular game play.

you just made my point more valid. god mode is in the game too. it's called dev console and it's up to everyone to decide if you want to use it or not. i know a lot of people that hate evil ships and use the dev console to remove them. does this mean we should remove the dev console from the game too?

[akiceabear]

A vanilla item/building and dev-mode are two completely different things. Surely you can't think that Tynan's balancing attitude is to include any and everything and just let players decide what they prefer?

[Toggle]

The dev mode, hence the 'dev' part for developer, is for Tynan to use (And pretty handy for modders) to test parts of the game with a command menu. It's not intended for players to even use it really.

[jamesinar]

Here is an idea for a balanced turret. Require the 160 steel plus 75 plasteel AND a gun. When unmanned the turret is autonomous but fires with a gun skill of between 2 and 5 depending on it's quality.When a colonist mans it they get an armor bonus from the turret their gun is added to the turret and the turrets shooting skill is added to that of the colonist.

[LordMunchkin]

Yeah combat needs some work. I think the best thing would be to introduce ammunition for ranged weapons and manned machine gun turrets. Obviously raid sizes would have to be rebalanced, but it would make melee a much more viable option. Turrets would be a late game thing you break out when the tribal hordes start to get really big.

Just add more gear slots for pawns to my wishlist (i.e. backpacks, tools, ammo, 2 weapons slots).

[Menuhin]

nobody forces you to make/use turrets. there. problem solved.

you don't like to use turret, don't make them. but there is certainly others who do like turrets, why screw them when the solution is so easy?

You're right.  And I do, for the most part.

The main reason I bring this up as a suggestion is because Tynan has hinted at it before.  I'm saying that we currently have enough (although few we could probably use more) options to defend ourselves without turrets.

However as several people have pointed out, the primary problem with playing without turrets is tribals and how the shear numbers and how vanilla combat mechanics work it becomes too difficult.  (I can however agree combat mechanics could maybe use a rework, but that is a different discussion.  But even if it does get a rework, I'd want it reworked without turrets and not balanced around them).

My suggestion is that for next alpha the turrets get removed and the amount of raiders gets balanced around a colony which operates without turrets.

By doing this we would be removing the backbone of a killbox (something Tynan would be in favor of), we would be making the gameplay more realistic and believable to the story, events and raids would have more weight as it would become more difficult to completely remove colonists from all combat situations, and by having no turrets and fewer raiders we would be lowering the rather rediculous payoff raiders bring into colonies for very little cost.

[zandadoum]

My suggestion is that for next alpha the turrets get removed and the amount of raiders gets balanced around a colony which operates without turrets.

this is already the case: raid size depends on colony wealth.
you don't make turrets = less wealth = smaller raids.

and btw, vs huge tribe raids a few tips: cover, snipers, molotovs, chokepoints, hit & run guerrilla tactics....
you can even build a trap room, let them all in and set them on fire once inside.
there's so much to do...

[Zanfib]

My suggestion is that for next alpha the turrets get removed and the amount of raiders gets balanced around a colony which operates without turrets.

this is already the case: raid size depends on colony wealth.
you don't make turrets = less wealth = smaller raids.

and btw, vs huge tribe raids a few tips: cover, snipers, molotovs, chokepoints, hit & run guerrilla tactics....
you can even build a trap room, let them all in and set them on fire once inside.
there's so much to do...

Not only that, but turrets disproportionately increase raid size. If you build turrets, raids will be larger than they would be if you used the metal for literally anything else.

[keylocke]

tl;dr

my response to someone stating that turrets are the "spine of a killbox"..

i disagree. a chokepoint for an ambush crossfire is the key feature of a killbox/killzone, not turrets.

this is especially true for mountainous regions or by creating artificial chokepoints by building walls.

[quxzcover]

Ive seen plenty of kill boxes that dont include turrets, such as pits filled with deadfall traps, mines, fire, colonists behind cover etc. (btw im pretty sure im the reason the deadfall traps got more expensive to make, Example: my kill box is roughly 250 deadfall traps and 16 turrets.)

[RemingtonRyder]

Something I've been modding/testing recently is removing wealth from the calculation of raid sizes, and making it entirely based on population. In other words, you face the same opposition whether you're using turrets, traps, or just the cunningly-arranged alleys of your town.

[BetaSpectre]

IMO Raids should be based upon your wealth in precious metals, not buildings.

Raiders need an incentive to actually attack a place, so far they've just been around for the sake of being around.

People, Metals, and food would be the biggest incentives in a hostile place. And if they fail a raid the next one should take like a year to comeby. People don't like wasting their lives IRL and IRL England and France only fought more or less yearly during the 200 year war. Greece also only fought when it was convenient to. There is a large material loss in fighting, and if it doesn't gain anything raiders ought to stop raiding. Mechanoids IMO should be more present then raiders since they're always about. People fear death is what I'm getting at, so they're less likely to fight.

Turrets are fine for the system they were placed into. But I think things ought to change for large endgame raids, and non-existant early game raids, not until the colony has sonething worth stealing. Turrets IMO ought to be buffed like Mechanoid minigun centipede tough, but require much more effort to acquire. Like Ship AI cores.

[CrazyEyes]

That's very true, it's odd that raiders consider my turrets "wealth" as though it were something they could plunder and are willing to send 10-20 people to die against my walls every couple of weeks.

Tribals in particular perplex me, they send a good 20-30 people during every attack armed with bows and clubs knowing full well that my men have LMGs, snipers, and a good defensive position.  The majority of them die or are captured and then they try again in two months.

I think the way the attackers handle turrets just needs to be adjusted.  Having lots of turrets shouldn't count directly towards the wealth of your colony, because turrets aren't valuable to attackers.  They should instead heavily influence future attacks being sappers or siegers, who are more equipped to deal with static defenses.  I don't know about anyone else but this would discourage me as a player from using many turrets - I vastly prefer it when the enemies come attack me and I don't have to go through the risk or effort of engaging them in the field.

In addition, the way enemies react to turrets should be changed - unless they're under direct fire, they should avoid entering a turret's firing range if at all possible.  This means they'd hang back and let their allies who can outrange and destroy your turrets do their jobs instead of blindly rushing into your killboxes to die.

[BetaSpectre]

That's very true, it's odd that raiders consider my turrets "wealth" as though it were something they could plunder and are willing to send 10-20 people to die against my walls every couple of weeks.

Tribals in particular perplex me, they send a good 20-30 people during every attack armed with bows and clubs knowing full well that my men have LMGs, snipers, and a good defensive position.  The majority of them die or are captured and then they try again in two months.

I think the way the attackers handle turrets just needs to be adjusted.  Having lots of turrets shouldn't count directly towards the wealth of your colony, because turrets aren't valuable to attackers.  They should instead heavily influence future attacks being sappers or siegers, who are more equipped to deal with static defenses.  I don't know about anyone else but this would discourage me as a player from using many turrets - I vastly prefer it when the enemies come attack me and I don't have to go through the risk or effort of engaging them in the field.

In addition, the way enemies react to turrets should be changed - unless they're under direct fire, they should avoid entering a turret's firing range if at all possible.  This means they'd hang back and let their allies who can outrange and destroy your turrets do their jobs instead of blindly rushing into your killboxes to die.

The game does adjust for turrets, you get more sapper events if you make kill boxes, but you get more raids too. The game scales its difficulty for you which makes for a sucky game if you've been rushing upgraded defenses. There's too much emphasis on fighting with too little on development and community. Build logs. Get carpet bombed. Farm trees. Robot menace. I do like that you can scale your difficulty however. So people who like building can of course do just that. I just wish that there could be a time slider or a way to change the difficulty mid way to ramp things up.

[rakkaus]

Or a storyteller that increases threats based solely upon colony size + wealth.