Things I Wish I'd Known Sooner

[Ranilin]

After playing for a while, I think it's only natural that new players gravitate to a killbox type of defense system, whether they look it up or not. One thing I wish I had known the first few weeks was how much lighting affects accuracy - illuminating the killzone of your killbox makes it faaaaar more deadly, while illuminating where your colonists will be to aid turrets in the defense is the worst idea ever since it only increases their chances of being hit in turn. Also, it never occurred to me that putting walls in between turrets two spaces apart prevents the chain-reaction detonation of turret defenses when one turret goes down, while avoiding the space needs of distancing outside each turrets explosion radius.

Learning how accuracy works, with all of the modifiers on it, as well as how distance affects hit chance, were very important tools to being able to win fights while severely outnumbered with low/no turrets.

[Regret]

Lighting matters, I should have known!

Thanks for the tip, this changes many of my designs.

[Too-DAMN-Much]

Lighting matters, I should have known!

Thanks for the tip, this changes many of my designs.

hehe, i just saw a youtuber i like learn why most of us build in steel, well... actually only nearly thankfully.

[Jorlem]

I just discovered that the psychic lances work on mechanoids.  Expensive, but being able to one-shot several of them from the safety of your base.  Plus, there are few things more amusing than watching them shred a berserk comrade, and the damage the missed shots can do to a ship part is considerable.

I've mainly been using the insanity lances on the centipedes, as they have more hp and are far more annoying, but it just occurred to me that since berserk pawns can only melee attack, and the scythers have their built in melee blades, it might do more damage to berserk them instead.

[Argelle]

RAIDERS DO NOT BREAK DOWN DOOR IF YOU LEAVE A SPACE!

huh?!? leave a space where? I assume it's not before or after the door, as it is always the case, so ... to the side?

[MisterVertigo]

I just learned watching a YouTuber that when you have a sick colonist, you can hover your mouse over the sickness name and it will tell you the percentage of immunity! That helps you gauge how far along they are to being able to work again!

[MultiDavid]

RAIDERS DO NOT BREAK DOWN DOOR IF YOU LEAVE A SPACE!

huh?!? leave a space where? I assume it's not before or after the door, as it is always the case, so ... to the side?

If you leave an open space on your wall, as in, nothing in it, non-sappers will always go for that entrance, making it easy to build killboxes.

[TheSilencedScream]

RAIDERS DO NOT BREAK DOWN DOOR IF YOU LEAVE A SPACE!

huh?!? leave a space where? I assume it's not before or after the door, as it is always the case, so ... to the side?

If you leave an open space on your wall, as in, nothing in it, non-sappers will always go for that entrance, making it easy to build killboxes.

If you have a chance, I'd like to see a video of what you mean by this, please.

As it stands, I generally leave the entrance to my base open and wall off the sides (think U-shaped) and then place buildings inside - with my turrets standing between the open entrance and my buildings - but sappers will always go for the outer walls, while the opening is only entered by regular raiders.

[Aristocat]

Not sure if he means this but.

l---O---l
l         l
D       D
l         l

D = Closed door
O = Opened door
l and - = wall

If you build wall like this all raiders except sappers will go through opened door instead of closed door no matter how many step it takes.

Which means you can build maze like this.

   lD----------  l
lDl -----------l
l  lD----------- l
l  l ------------l
l  lD---------- l
l  lO               l

Uhh. something like this. Colonists can skip through maze while enemy have to take long path while some of them distracted and bash wall. Your longsword colonists can slaughter them with little to no harm.

Edit : Fixed maze

[LaMizzy]

Not sure if he means this but.

l---O---l
l         l
D       D
l         l

D = Closed door
O = Opened door
l and - = wall

If you build wall like this all raiders except sappers will go through opened door instead of closed door no matter how many step it takes.

Which means you can build maze like this.

   lD----------  l
lDl -----------l
l  lD----------- l
l  l ------------l
l  lD---------- l
l  lO               l

Uhh. something like this. Colonists can skip through maze while enemy have to take long path while some of them distracted and bash wall. Your longsword colonists can slaughter them with little to no harm.

Edit : Fixed maze

What's the advantage of this besides making raiders walk a long time??

You can't focus fire on them with turrets are walls will block the shots.
You can peak-a-poo your colonist into the door to take surprise shots with lots of micromanaging, but that has a limited effectiveness upwards to X numbers of raiders.
Making raider walk a long time is ideal if you are trying to freeze or boil them to death, but I haven't been able to get raiders to enter temperature traps...

[Aristocat]

What's the advantage of this besides making raiders walk a long time??

You can't focus fire on them with turrets are walls will block the shots.
You can peak-a-poo your colonist into the door to take surprise shots with lots of micromanaging, but that has a limited effectiveness upwards to X numbers of raiders.
Making raider walk a long time is ideal if you are trying to freeze or boil them to death, but I haven't been able to get raiders to enter temperature traps...

In early game you can kill most raiders without any harm with longsword, this also capture lots of raiders which is useful.

After mid game it's harder without mods but with mods and full armor you take only 1 damage against fist while your axes one hit kill pretty much everything.

Also I don't know if this is correct but when melee colonist kills a target they make extra attack on closest target.

[Too-DAMN-Much]

I just learned watching a YouTuber that when you have a sick colonist, you can hover your mouse over the sickness name and it will tell you the percentage of immunity! That helps you gauge how far along they are to being able to work again!

i'd assumed that was widely known or i'd have added it to the list!

[UnityIron]

So my first few games I had no idea that you needed to make a research bench and research stone cutting to make stone blocks, this then meant my wooden bases would go up like bonfire.
Whilst battling one of my bonfires I found that colonists can be put down by fire and need rescuing.
I also discovered that a fire that gets out of hand can down 7 colonists and end your game.
Oh and batteries catch fire if they don't have a roof over them, or at least they do for me... over and over again whilst your trying to build a room around them.

[TheGrover]

I'll give the door trick a go. It makes sense now as the traps can be pretty effective at thinning out mangunter packs and raiders. I've even killed a scyther (albeit a little softened by turrets) using a few traps as the damage tends to stick around the head and neck region, usually destroying whatever it hits on living things.

Aside from that. I used to use a really long corridor of death to drive raiders insane before they finished climbing over half a mile of sandbags and dead raiders. Often they starved in the tunnel before they made it back out (before pawns and raiders carried meals that is)

Maybe a trap lined route would help keep the manhunter packs away too. I recently watched a pack of board steamroll my killbox manned by 6 pawns with shotguns and a minigun through sheer force of numbers. I thought there was only about 10, then it dawned on me that they were clipped on top of each other, and there was more like 30 angry boars ripping my pawns apart, and that's after my smattering of traps Had killed a few

[Fernbhoy]

no matter how many times i reload my game, my same 4 colonists are destined to get Maleria on the same day.