I want to hear about exploit strategies!

[NeverPire]

A few plasteel traps (2-3 max per scyther) are enough to kill them and the time centipedes come, you have already rearmed your traps.

[Lightzy]

Also a non-argument, because you can spare plasteel for traps you're probably not in a big problem to defend against raids anymore.

Though personally I think stuff like caterpillars should simply smash traps apart rather than get injured

[lighthoof]

You do not need plasteel even. Regular steel traps have a good chance to kill the schyter with one hit. Not once I was arming my men to defend against mechs only to notice, that I have a bunch of time until centipeeds arrive due to schyters being beheaded by the traps

[NeverPire]

Also a non-argument, because you can spare plasteel for traps you're probably not in a big problem to defend against raids anymore.

Though personally I think stuff like caterpillars should simply smash traps apart rather than get injured

Rock traps work too, but you need twice more traps, it's all.

[Trylobyte]

If you have a good crafter, making cotton for him to work with makes financial sense.  But why are you guys forgetting about Smokeleaf?  *Everyone* can make them, and at 11s per 0.01kg it beats everything - even silver.  In fact, now that I think of it, why am I even selling it?  Everyone buys it, you can store 11x the value on a single tile... I should be stockpiling joints and using them to buy what I need.

And seeing as there is no interstellar DEA, why are joints so valuable?

I too am a fan of selling joints.  They just have so much going for them, and I feel they're a little bit exploity.  Here's why.

1)  It's easy.  Joints are labor-intensive, yes...  but it's bottom-rung unskilled labor almost anybody can do.  If you have a Grower with 4 skill (and I hope you do) and anyone physically capable of crafting and hauling then you can start your own smokeleaf farm.  Unlike most other options which require some level of skill, the barrier to entry to begin cranking out joints is so low you have to be careful you don't trip on it.  Even tribals can do it from day one.

2)  It's free.  The only cost to setting up a smokeleaf farm is space - You need space for the farm, space for the stockpile, and space for the crafting spots.  So, roughly the same as for any industry.  However, you need nothing else - Other industries might get you more money for the work unit, but other industries also require things like power or steel or components to even start them.  It's hard to go wrong with free.

3)  It's convenient.  Joints might as well have 'legal tender' written on every one because every caravan will buy them.  You can use them in place of silver for most intents and purposes.  Again, you can make more money per work unit by selling armchairs or parkas or even corn I hear, but it's much harder finding someone to buy it.  With joints any old caravan or trader who shows up will be happy to relieve you of them until they run out of silver.  This makes it very easy to amass huge sums of silver for the things you really want to buy.

4)  It's useful.  You know what one of the nice things about having tons of smokeleaf on hand is?  Mental breaks aren't that big of a problem anymore.  I forbid drugs to everyone so they don't burn through my stash, but I can authorize a hit or two in the event someone's on the verge of a breakdown.  This gives me a nice bonus while pursuing economic security that most other crafts don't provide.

I've yet to find another good money-making method that offers as much as smokeleaf does.  It might not be the best option in every single category, but unlike other trades which have advantages and drawbacks (beer has to be climate-controlled, armchairs and clothing tie up a high-skill pawn, corn is hard to sell, flake/yayo need expensive drug labs, etc) smokeleaf only has one drawback - high labor time - that's easily mitigated by the fact it's something all but the most useless colonist is capable of helping with.  All in all, it just seems like the best general choice for economic independence.

[CrazyEyes]

I forget if this has been mentioned, but it bears repeating if so. If you have a colonist you want to get rid of that is a loved one or relative of another colonist and you don't want to incur the mood debuff for their death, you can tell them to form a caravan and settle a new colony next door then immediately abandon it. The pawns you sent there vanish without technically dying so nobody in your main colony gets upset about it.

I used his trick in my sea ice challenge playthrough when I let Engie's husband join the colony but he had an annoying voice, couldn't haul, clean or do medicine, had no useful skills, and got himself hooked on Flake immediately.

[Pushover]

To throw up a quick firebreak, you can construct stone walls and just leave the placed stone without finishing construction.

Regarding smokeleaf, it's good universal currency, but if you are using your own caravans to trade, all colonies will buy, and for most of the game you are hard pressed to produce 10+k silver of smokeleaf a season. If you can, it's harder to find useful things to spend that silver on, although I've been dumping mine into luci.

[Ace_livion]

well I found that making a single square road around my base and covering it whit dead falls spikes work really well.
since the rode got a movement of 100% enemy's naturally want to walk om it

i don't really need to cover it completely whit trap. and if the wall of your base is 2 thick, grenade raiders will stop after destroying 1 wall and continue walking on traps. I even made the roof to cover the dead fall traps. this way weapons drooped wont deteriorate 

[Thyme]

I regularily had grenadiers bomb their way through thicker walls than that in A15. Anyway, I think that was removed in A16 and they only mine walls now.

[NeverPire]

I regularily had grenadiers bomb their way through thicker walls than that in A15. Anyway, I think that was removed in A16 and they only mine walls now.

I already have grenadiers attacking a three thick wall with grenades even if a path with traps was clear not far in A16.

[Venaroth]

Well this is only an exploit within the phi client, but seeing as how phi is very wide spread I may as well tell people about it. If you have a friend online with the phi client you can save the game, send them any number of your resources, then reload the save and repeat for an easy duplication method.

[Thyme]

You can also turn devmode on, spawn any number of items and turn it off again, but that's none of my business.

PS: Mods don't count, as these thread is for vanilla exploits. Tynan can't possibly be responsible for other peoples work. ;)

[Lightzy]

I regularily had grenadiers bomb their way through thicker walls than that in A15. Anyway, I think that was removed in A16 and they only mine walls now.

They always blow through walls. Which is annoying. Even without "advanced tactics".

With traps/turrets being so ridiculously killy, I suppose this was a must, but a better idea would be to somehow limit traps/turrets (1-3 use traps, ammo upkeep for turrets)

[slamo]

If a turret is behind deep water and there's no path to it, raiders will not fire at it, even if it's only a couple of tiles away. Especially if the attackers are sappers the turret just fires away while the raiders mill around and die.


Shooting any member of a sapper raid causes everyone in the raid to stop digging and mill around aimlessly.


Decoy doors.

Place a bunch of doors randomly around the map. When raiders come they will scatter to attack doors randomly. A big raider group will break up into small groups and individuals that can be easily dispatched.

Mod edit (Calahan) @ slamo - I have merged your three posts into one to avoid you infringing upon forum rule #10. Please can you edit your existing post in the future rather than creating multiple successive posts. Thank you.

[SpaceDorf]

Decoy doors.

Place a bunch of doors randomly around the map. When raiders come they will scatter to attack doors randomly. A big raider group will break up into small groups and individuals that can be easily dispatched.

Mod edit (Calahan) @ slamo - I have merged your three posts into one to avoid you infringing upon forum rule #10. Please can you edit your existing post in the future rather than creating multiple successive posts. Thank you.

This combined with trapped roads makes for the perfect Sniper Nest

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