Less Sappers!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[cultist]

The game only spams sappers if you don't give it any other choice. If you lock yourself into a mountain with only one way in or out and a massive killbox, the AI will (it seems) trigger more events that will actually stress you a bit. If you just stretch your base out a bit and keep the important bits inside the mountain, you should see less sappers.

I usually try and connect and surround my geothermal generators with walls, this also seems to help as the AI can find something to attack besides your main base, and this can often create fun little skirmishes where you plink away at groups sabotaging your power stations and try to draw them into your main defenses.

[LordMunchkin]

Sappers, siegers, they're all boring and unchallenging as hell. Snipers kill both extremely easily. Siegers can be slaughtered in their sleep easily enough. The sapper AI is often so stupid that they run past my fully armed pawns to mine a piece rock deep inside my base. Also, if the sappers do get in my base, all they've done is dug their own graves by walking into a maze of choke points. Seriously, I find tribals and manhunter packs way more challenging because they at least have the potential to overrun my defenses. As it is, mechanoids are the only serious threat in this game. Even then snipers deal with them 90% of the time.

[quxzcover]

I still use a killbox of deadfall and honestly now that ive explored my options the only challenge is tribals.
Sappers: drive grenadier insane with lance, makes them act like normal raiders.
Raiders: runs through deadfall.
Manhunter: they kill themselves all on deadfall, so free meat.
Shippart: I was lying, this is also insanely hard to beat.
Siege: Kill them in there sleep.
Etc,everything runs through deadfall,but with tribals they all take the same path so only the first 10 die, then there about 40 more to slowly kill all turrets.

[CrazyEyes]

Sappers are nowhere near as annoying as a raid drop directly into my front yard - especially when it's mechanoids.  With sappers you just have to treat them as a siege and send your troops out to meet them.  The actual sieges are more annoying because I play on a slightly larger map and they usually have their sandbags built by the time anyone gets close.

Ship parts I actually find pretty easy to deal with.  There's no time limit on when to crack them so I just have my colonists build fortifications and plop down some turrets, then I draft them all and someone pings the ship part while the rest wait behind cover.

[BetaSpectre]

Ship part is easy to deal with if there aren't too many sythers. And you know how to micro your colonists.

Basically play tag with different colonists, and the Mechs will destroy their own ship part for you. Then you have to run around and avoid minigun fire. You could during this time set up a kill box, then send the mechs on through. Though if the ship part lands inside an important colony structure then it'll be much harder to deal with.

Aside from more and more turrets I don't really have a way to deal with drop pods ATM, I suppose covering the entire place with roofing with mines layed on top of any unroofed areas.

[Mr Demon]

I got 'a' solution. Can't say you will like it, but it could be the next thing.

It is regards to replacing the strategy with vehicles, scouts and a single use RPG. I think the 'sappers' should become a digger infiltrator class, seperate from raider parties, but act more like thieves, whom sneak into your base, incapacitate people, and... yeah... not sure where from there.

https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=16510.0

[keylocke]

Hmm, what would someone consider as a "Competent AI"?
Just to see opinions.

Raiders that are actually geared for their tactics. That would greatly improve raids without even any actual AI changes.


No more siege parties of only half a dozen guys equiped with only pistols. They should all have survival/sniper/assault rifles. Build more sandbags. Maybe build a small room and keep their shells + food inside so you cant set them off in a chain reaction killing half their guys because they are just lying on the floor.

Only raids that paradrop inside your base should be melee only. A personal shield is not enough protection to reach anyone vs massed gunfire, let alone past a bunch of turrets.

No more brawlers with ranged weapons. No careful shooters with grenades, etc. No more awful shivs that do less damage than punching.


Raiders that do not start crossing 10+ squares of sandbags or rubble and being unable to fight back while they get massacred by your fire. If they cannot stop and fire within 5 squares of their location, they should start destroying the sandbags or walls to walk around the obvious killing zone. Or just let people shoot while standing on such cover, but with no cover bonus.

Mechanoids that spawn immediately from ship parts, instead of waiting for you to shoot it to pop them out. Walling ship parts in for various cheesy tactics is just ridiculous.

Hostiles that are damaged should at least attempt to seek the source out, not just stand there getting plinked from long range by a sniper for several days.

Hostiles should not shoot at enemies in personal shields unless they are the only target with a reasonable chance to be hit. Multiply the chance to hit by ~25% for the purpose of choosing the best target vs colonists with shields, to represent them being much harder to hurt.


All enemy types need to have a target that fits their fluff. Natives could just burn your metal structures like solar panels and wind turbines, and steal food or steel (things they lack or cant produce themselves, ie steel to make tools).

While pirates should look to grab prisoners as a matter of urgency: when one colonist is KOed, a single pirate should grab them and start running for the exit, while the rest of the pirates continue their attack to provide cover for the kidnapping. Right now, stopping their attack entirely just to try to kidnap 1 person is actually a huge relief if the battle is going badly.

Mechanoids need to keep scythers from charging forward leaving their centipedes far behind. This just results in 2 easy battles instead of 1 tougher one. Have the scythers stay close to the centipedes providing accurate long range fire (their strength) not leading the charge and getting killed by a few turrets (their weakness). Centipedes seem to lack accuracy, so they should stick to the inferno cannons or perhaps a new heavy grenade launcher, and attempt to target any concentrations of enemy not just the nearest turret.


Overall, you can make the raids a whole lot more dangerous just by making them use the tools they already have, not giving them new ones. Natives have bows that out range your turrets, but often half their guys have crappy stone clubs. Those charge forward into turret fire and die, causing the entire raid to flee before the dangerous bow users have gotten more than a few volleys into the air. Pirates do the same thing; fail to make use of their powerful ranged weapons because half their guys run lemming like to their deaths and then the whole raid makes a run for it.


Ideally:

The whole force fights as a unit. If some of your guys are in range, let them do their thing. Don't get sucked into trying to reach people 50 squares away to stab them with your crappy knife past all those turrets. Stay close to your sniper rifle guys and do your job: protect them from any melee or shorter ranged guys getting close enough to hurt them.

Trying to melee a guy because he is 20 squares away trying to shoot your sniper with his charge rifle is a good plan, running 50+ though massed enemy fire to stab someone with just a pistol is not.

^this.. exactly this.

some of his points, i already mentioned ages ago but nobody seems to listen.

the "battle" is the core of rimworld. it's the main draw, since out of the many DF clones out there, rimworld has THE best RTS battle system currently available. it's a game changer.

however, it lacks certain polish for the AI and need smoother RTS group controls... add multiplayer, z-levels, and better (more stylish) graphics.. and i wouldn't be surprised if rimworld makes it into the list of all time gaming classics..

[rakkaus]

My biggest dream concerning Rimworld is that one day raiders/weather/events/traders will be controlled by a human in a multiplayer environment where they have the freedom to command the story to other players. There would need to have a rating/opinion system for players of course, even tho communities looking for role-playing would emerge.

In a side note, i don't think co-op would be cool in Rimworld; nor would "competitive". Unless the player that is controlling "god" in the other side is a known friend, probably an "increasing-with-time-point-pool" and a cool-down for the abilities seem necessary to control abusive behavior.

[Limdood]

That "competent AI" would wipe out nearly any colony with the first or second tribal raid.  If the tribals actually burrowed thru walls to avoid killboxes and kept their melee back by their bowmen, you'd lose.  Every time.  Bowmen outnumbering your shooters 7 to 1 just loses.  because a single bowshot hitting you is really nasty...those arrows hit HARD. 

A "smart" tribal raid should win every time.  The idea is...they're not smart...they rely on numbers and rushing your defenses.  You want effective tribal raids?  make the melee people ignore turrets.  50 tribals in a clump aren't going to be taken down easily by massed gunfire...it'll take some explosion usually...which is why people use sacrificial turrets...take that one thing away and reduce the speed penalty on sandbags and chunks and you've buffed tribal raids and forced them to be fought using strategy rather than "put a turret up front surrounded by sandbags so it blows and kills all the melee raiders"

Pirates have to fight in SOME WAY worse than the colonists.  The pirate raids are often equal or better in number and armament.  Even taking colony defenses and resources into account, lets say you do twice as well as the pirates.  Taking 50% casualties every raid isn't sustainable and AGAIN, pirate raids using player tactics will eventually kill any colony.  Removing the poor gear should help to reduce this issue.  Making pirates attempt to pick up the nearest valuable thing when they flee (say, within 5 squares sideways or backwards of their path off the map) should help reduce the colony wealth impact of better geared pirates, as the most valuable thing will usually be an ally body or good weapon.  It fits with the THEME of pirates too - raid for wealth.  Scooping up some wealth on the way out is very "pirate."  Sieges should have pirates on watch.  Any gunshot that hits a pirate will cause all the pirates to wake up 3 seconds later if there is an awake pirate still standing (this way you CAN snipe them off sleeping, but you have to be good/lucky to kill the awake ones before they wake the rest).  Sappers are actually fine, or on the weaker side....they still can have stupidity issues where they try to walk all the way into a base before deciding to shoot (dying along the way) - that could stand to be fixed, but the base damage they can cause is scary enough.

You want mechs to be scarier?  they should still charge headlong to their death.  Just make any mech on the map start moving towards the nearest colonists, shooting any structural objects in their way.  This way mechs will just drill holes thru the sides of bases....forget "seeking out sniper fire,"  they'll NEVER sit around with this...soon as the ship spawns them, they start heading for colonists.  Separating them and killing them in 2 easier fights should be the GO-TO tactic for mechs...because if they always head straight for colonists, shooting thru walls (if it would significantly delay them to go around), then thats all you CAN do.

Every threat needs a viable tactic to counter it, changing the game to remove the counters just makes raids a "you lose" button.