!Defence!, a heatstroke trap R&D thread

[Al-Horesmi]

Update: DOESN'T WORK ON MECHS ANYMORE!

So how do you kill all those unending hordes of enemies? With !FIRE!, of course. As any innovation, my ideas are based on other people's ideas. A lot of people have been coming up with heatstroke traps using geysers, beds, wood, corn, etc. Here are some of them that I can remember:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VibjtMVwbKI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hY14qeWPCZ4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRYVLSzE6dM
My design is basically a functional copy, however, it has a lot of neat bells and whistles, and, most importantly, can reliably kill mechanoids. Hope the last one got you interested.

But before we take a look at this doomsday machine, we need to know a few things about the AI in Rimworld. What we need, is a certain behavior from our enemy: a blind rush into our trap. There is only one reliable way to achive such behavior: a clear, unobstructed by walls or doors passage to a working turret. So just put a few turrets inside the walls of your colony to ensure such reaction from the enemy.

Now, let's take a look at it, shall we?

The contraption has three main parts: a labirinth, the combustion chamber, and maintenance tunnels. As you can see, the "hot zone" is insulated with two blocks thick granite walls, both for heat insulation and "enemy insulation" purposes. Wood in the combustion chamber is layered in a way that allows for easy extinguishing. It's important to make maintenance tunnels open, meaning no doors. The doors at the end of each labirinth line serve three purposes: easy cleanup, baiting manhunters and emp-stunning mechanoids.
An important structural element of this defence system is an "unfinished wall". An "unfinished wall" has the same amount of hitpoints as a finished wall, but can be disassembled at an instant, and without loosing any material. If a granite stockpile is near, a wall can be constructed many times without much effort. Two of these walls are placed at the entrances to the labirinth, and two can be seen in between the maintenance doors. These last two walls are placed when enemy enters the trap, and are only needed when you need to deal with mechanoids. More on that later.

So here is how this system operates on a daily basis:

A perfectly reasonable thumbo manhunter pack. Of course, such things don't exist, but you can hunt regular thumbos and regular packs just as easily as is shown here.


Remember that whole "clear path to the turrets" thing? It doesn't work on manhunters. So here, a colonist steps out into the chamber and serves as bait, as the animals get too close, he steps back, and another colonist steps out.


So when all of the animals are secure, you close them, light up the chamber with some molotovs, and close the exit.




?
PROFIT!!! Even the wood is intact, meaning it's a zero cost system.

So, what do you think? Seems pretty awesome to me.

[Regret]

effective.

[Renegade]

How does it handle against sappers?

[MagusLucius]

This is still a killbox, just a less expensive one, unless wood happens to be scarce in your biome.

it also seems to rely on half-constructed walls, for some reason.  A better way to my mind would be to lure the manhunters into a room with a bunch of heaters and then just crank it up to 200 degrees or something.  or you could build a room around a geothermal vent.

[Mikhail Reign]

Heaters don't get it hot enough. 200 degrees will slowly give heat stroke. To make a heat trap you have to get it to much higher so that people are on the edge of spontaneously combustion. Geo vents can do this, but having one in the right place is rare. Starting a fire in a room will quickly raise the temp beyond what heaters can do, and anywhere you want. 

[Al-Horesmi]

How does it handle against sappers?

It doesn't handle against sappers.

it also seems to rely on half-constructed walls, for some reason.

It doesn't "rely" on them. It's just more effective not to finish them.

with a bunch of heaters and then just crank it up to 200 degrees or something.  or you could build a room around a geothermal vent.

Belive me, I've tried it all. Wooden walls are the best fuel.

Fun fact: !Defence! also has a much higher survival rate. Just got freacking 8(EIGHT!) prisoners. One girl died from infection though, but otherwise, I have 7 prefectly safe captives that I don't know what to do with.

[Sens]

There are some things which you dont mention:

When it rains you are done, defenseless, because no matter the roof, fire on wood is put out and doesnt spread, so you never will heat it up enough for this to work, except if it doesnt rain. But it rains often during raids especially later when they come at nights frequently.

Your colonist will never get any Shooting skill up like this, since all they do is getting burns each raid.

There is huge probability that alot of the raiders, manhunters just burn down because you dont have enough time to put fires out, so you dont really get that much loot as mentioned.

While with killbox you may lose some turrets or alot it all depends how well u design it.

This will never make killbox obsolete. It is an addition thats all, but its better to build a killbox since it works well in most cases, the problem is when raids overgrow your killbox, but just like that they overgrow your burnbox too, to be more specific, when mechs overgrow your killbox, pirates/tribals wont ever overgrow it, what you need to do is place a long tunnel to your killbox and in middle of tunnel is entrance to killbox in the end of tunnel is 1 turret (which is placed so that it fires a few tiles before they start entering the killbox in the middle of that tunnel, they go through tunnel in line and once in range of that turret they start shooting at turret no matter the 100 raiders infront of them, especially later when their numbers are large, its happens way too often that they dont even enter that killbox, they kill themself before that, because of severe friendly fire, the most ridicolous part is, that sometimes even that turret at end of tunnel will survive while 200 raiders die before that and just break the attack and go home, especially when clumsy guys try fire rocket launchers at that turret.

I am building something simmilar that doesnt involve placing walls to block them, i dont mind losing wood, its really cheap, my problem is 60 centipedes + 60 scythers raid atm (3,2 mio colony worth), while killbox or defenses with turrets didnt have "much" troubles with 30 centipedes and 30 scythers per raid, once that was doubled they didnt work anymore, mechs positioned themselves one by one ahead of each other and since there were too many of them, before the killbox could kill them they already destroyed it, heavily wounded but still shooting around like they wouldnt be wounded at all.

I guess the burn box will work with 120 mechs raid, but only if it wont rain. Otherwise ill try a geothermal one, since i really want to be able to defend vs everything game throws at you.

Tested it so far and wood burns for around 2 days, the place is a long labyrinth with both ends openened by a "hold open door" no wall placing etc needed, its constantly over 400 degrees for lets say 2 days which i guess will be enough to handle 120 mechs, waiting for them to come by for a year now

[Britnoth]

*reads title of "making a killbox obsolite"* (sic)

*sees pictures of generic heat killbox*

OP title is misleading, and post is filled with large images of the same thing that others have done to death (hoho) already.

What are you trying to discuss?

[Vagabond]

Making the killbox obsolete should be done via eliminating the stupid AI, not by replacing, or trying to replace it with another type of killbox. The fact this game relies upon waves of insane amounts of mobs that do nothing but charge completely undermines the tactical combat system of this game. You simply end up making killboxes because there is no other way to survive. Then all you are doing is watching as your colonists slaughter humans with down syndrome on a genocidal level.

I don't know about anyone else, but once the game reaches that point, I always end up starting a new game.

[Sens]

So i had that Mech raid i was waiting for and tried it out a couple times

Was 80 centipedes and 60 scythers, first some visitors redirected them so they split and it all went to "hell", then it rained twice in between and put fires out, then there was hard snow + cold snap once which put fires out also, one time scythers died actually + a couple centipedes, less than 5, but most of the time some of them just bashed the walls randomly down and didnt even enter the "burnbox" (granite walls) all the time their path was clear and there was just one path, but they dont all follow same plan... etc etc etc... not even once it worked. They even bash the walls inside the burnbox down at times. And mostly they were way too spread out through the map to even get them trapped like you suggest here inside at once would have to make a labyrinth stretching out throughout the entire map i guess and even then im sure some of them would just bash down the walls randomly anyway making new path which others would follow afterwards. Maybe it works with a few ones landing exactly infront or near that "burnbox" but not with larger forces. Just too many things can go wrong as it seems. There are also things as when the raid happens you dont rly have all colonist waiting there for them already but some may be outside etc, this isnt anywhere near what i expected

[Sens]

Okie, had another Mech raid and this time it dropped close to the "burnbox" and gave it a couple more tries, it was more than 80 centipedes this time and around 50 scythers but were alot closer to each other as they were entering the labyrinth as in previous tests, so at first this time the scythers broke down the triple wall so they made an opening to the outside which put everything back to 0 temperature instantly, in next try the mechs broke down the wall to the outside and result was same, then in 3rd attempt it worked! lol, seems you have to let them a bit deeper inside and startup the fire really fast, the temperatures have to rise up really fast, threw alooot of molotovs this time and those already deeper in labyrinth didnt go bash the walls as in previous attempts, those closer to entrance did but as those were verry few the others already burned down in the process, so yeah in case they land near "burnbox" and no rain or snow this works pretty well

[attachment deleted due to age]

[Al-Horesmi]

OP title is misleading, and post is filled with large images of the same thing that others have done to death (hoho) already.

Agree, changed the title  to something more appropriate. I'm trying to improve that thing that people have done.

Making the killbox obsolete should be done via eliminating the stupid AI, not by replacing, or trying to replace it with another type of killbox.

Yes, yes, yes, you are right. But it doesn't seem to be coming any time soon. And untill that time, we need to keep up with 100+ raids somehow.

...the place is a long labyrinth with both ends openened by a "hold open door" no wall placing etc needed, its constantly over 400 degrees...

There is only one reliable way to achive such behavior: a clear, unobstructed by walls or doors passage to a working turret.

...and it all went to "hell"...didnt even enter the "burnbox" (granite walls) all the time their path was clear and there was just one path, but they dont all follow same plan... etc etc etc... not even once it worked. They even bash the walls inside the burnbox down at times. And mostly they were way too spread out through the map to even get them trapped...this isnt anywhere near what i expected

Open doors count

Meanwhile, I've contunued doing research, and found out that max temperature is 2000 C in this game, there is no point in putting more wood if you can reach that temperature. Also, I've done some modifications, and now it is possible to "shepard" the enemies inside the trap indefinetly, so it's possible to wait out the rain. And to combat the "rain started in the middle of the combustion" I've added three combustion chambers, so you can abort and start burning at will. The whole thing gets a bit too complicated to explain in all the details, so I think I'll make a video to demonstrate the whole thing soon.

[Sens]

Not sure what you mean with open doors count, i hope you understand that as long as door is on "hold open" it is same for AI as if there was no door. Which means: you can redirect them the way you want. In my case i leave the door to burnbox open or the door to killbox open, its up to me to decide where the ai will go and it can be done very easy with a colonist and a click. While temperature will not be effected and can be raised quickly even if its on "hold open".
Its not like i had 20 passageways open it was just that one, my colony is already way too old and would need to break down alot of walls i built to make it flawless avoiding the mechs to be too spread out, was already thinking that its possible to do a perfect heat trap that would be build all around your base in labyrinth style and just wait out rain if it happens. But for my 5520 colony it would mean i had to redesign it entirely from scratch + id need a different starting location, im surrounded by swamps on two sides. That way it wouldnt really matter where mechs come from, but the way my colony is the mechs or raids can drop down inside walls too because it stretches out too much across the map. Maybe if i ever go play a new colony i do that and yes its possible for sure to make it work with waiting out the rain snow etc... just the matter of lenght of that labyrinth while wood is really cheap resource and doesnt even cost much to burn whole map down if you want. So yeah, if you work on this from the start of the colony it is POSSIBLE to make it FLAWLESS without much hassle, you just need to chunk your base in the middle of that huge labyrinth around it.. (except the part where raiders drop right on top of you, sappers you can intercept and flank and later rebuild that few walls they break down.) otherwise you can defend vs everything, just the matter of building that labyrinth with entries at all 4 sides and your base in the middle.

[Al-Horesmi]

it is same for AI as if there was no door. Which means: you can redirect them the way you want.

I've done lots of tests, it woud seem like AI sees an open door. If there is no door, every enemy on the map follows in, around all the walls. If there is an open door, every pawn starts bashing the shit out of the base, including those bloody open doors.

[Sens]

Now test that again with the "hold open" door leading to all your colonists.