I want to hear about exploit strategies!

[Forfor]

Fair enough. I missed smokeleaf because I try to avoid drug production overall XD

[NeverPire]

The advantage of cotton is that anyone who's good at crafting or refuses to grow things can mass produce parkas which are incredibly value efficient. My excellent plasteel longswords were selling for about 500ish. My mid-quality parkas were selling for over 300.

Make alpaca wool T-shirt, much more faster to create than a parca and even a shoddy alpaca wool T-shirt is sold 400

[Sola]

Sniper rifles vs psychic/poison ships.  You can fire from out of range and the mechanoids will not come to you if you're firing from max range.

Sniper rifles vs centipedes.  You can fire, retreat, fire, retreat, and kill an unlimited number of centipedes using this strategy.

Stripping nearby raiders/escape pod people that are otherwise condemned to death to avoid the "D" on clothing.  Maybe not an exploit, but certainly a little weird.
"Did his heart stop beating before or after you got the shirt off?"
"I'm not sure.  It was right around the same time."
"No, this is important.  I *need* to know this.  If you did not get the shirt off him in time, it cuts the value of the shirt by 80%, and anyone who wears this shirt will be perpetually unhappy while they wear it."
"I'm really not sure.  Is it THAT important?  I mean, he was going to die anyways..."
"But did he die WHILE WEARING the shirt?"

In response to a previous post, parkas are NOT a exploit.  They require 130 materials and a ton of work to complete.  While they do increase the net value of the materials used (if craftsmanship is positive) you're also wasting a pawn for half a day to do it.  That's the equivalent of "going to work and getting paid for it".  Making furniture out of wood is much faster, uses more easily obtained resources, and generates more silver per work-point.  Additionally, you *always* have a good constructor, whereas you may not have a great tailor.

[Pushover]

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 find smokeleaf to be weight efficient, but labor intensive compared to growing. Considering I can visit my neighboring colony in about 4h in game time, the labor required for Smokeleaf is much higher.

[Shurp]

Hmmm.  I generally have my whole colony stop what they're doing at Harvest Time so my fields clear out pretty quickly and I haven't been paying attention to farming labor.  But you're right; since grow time per unit for smokeleaf and cotton is about the same, you can get a multiplier by having a good craftsman improve the value.  But he has to be tailoring nonstop with an endless supply of cotton for it to really pay off.

I usually have my craftsmen spending their time making power armor instead

[Pushover]

It's really that a smokeleaf joint is worth like 2 silver more than leaves, doesn't train crafting as much (lots of running back and forth, even if you have stockpiles surrounding the crafting area).

The reason I like corn is it's only growing and hauling (and hauling can be skipped or abused via caravan forming). Your good crafters can still do whatever is most profitable and don't really factor into this sort of work. I grow enough cotton for my crafters, but I have about 150 tiles of corn per grower.

EDIT: Berries require a similar amount of work, but is worth more than cotton per plant, comes up at around 5.6 silver per plant. Still takes more labor than corn, though.

With infinite silver, a bunch of trained dogs can really clear a field, and they can feed off the infinite corn. 0 animal filth from them means that they don't make extra work for my cleaners.

EDIT: Seems like the proper hauling abuse to haul lightweight items is:
1) Form caravan, taking everyone (or just a few people if there are only a few thousand units to haul).
2) Select all of the good you are trying to haul, such as Corn.
3) Once all colonists have picked up the items, draft them.
4) Move colonists to stockpile.
5) Cancel forming caravan.
6) Undraft.
Your pawns will dump all that they were carrying onto the ground around them, which should be the stockpile area.

Seems like raw food should really weigh 0.05kg at least, since a meal is 0.35kg. At the current 0.03kg, we have quantum stoves that add mass to the meal.

[b0rsuk]

The advantage of cotton is that anyone who's good at crafting or refuses to grow things can mass produce parkas which are incredibly value efficient. My excellent plasteel longswords were selling for about 500ish. My mid-quality parkas were selling for over 300.

Make alpaca wool T-shirt, much more faster to create than a parca and even a shoddy alpaca wool T-shirt is sold 400

Then there's the matter of storage efficiency. Parkas fit the most material to a single warehouse square. Selling t-shirts puts more burden on your constructors.

[NeverPire]

Then there's the matter of storage efficiency. Parkas fit the most material to a single warehouse square. Selling t-shirts puts more burden on your constructors.

With the kind of storage I show in this picture, there isn't any problems.
Therefore, a lot of players since A16 have decided to establish their bases near an allied base and can so almost drectly sell their production.

I precise all the storages in this picture are composed of a few wood pillars (walls) and a roof, no more and they are reachable from anywhere.

[attachment deleted by admin due to age]

[PotatoeTater]

Hmmm.  I generally have my whole colony stop what they're doing at Harvest Time so my fields clear out pretty quickly and I haven't been paying attention to farming labor.  But you're right; since grow time per unit for smokeleaf and cotton is about the same, you can get a multiplier by having a good craftsman improve the value.  But he has to be tailoring nonstop with an endless supply of cotton for it to really pay off.

I usually have my craftsmen spending their time making power armor instead

I do the same thing, I set all my colonist to farming and suspend all bills until after harvest. Production at benches is for the winter months. I do have to say, I've been making yayo as my main source of income. Almost all trader types take it, and it is decently priced for how easy it is to make.

[Lightzy]

Worst is sniper/hunter rifles and kiting everything in the game, especially caterpillars and scythers etc.
But ...
Because of the ease of taking advantage of exploits making the game easy, you slowly get threats which are so ridiculously strong you can ONLY overcome them by taking advantage of exploits, and then the underlying design is broken.

example: If you remove snipers/hunting rifles from the game or nerf them, a couple of scythers or a single caterpillar will total your colony.
I remember the times I got a small mechanid assault on my tribals before they got sniper rifles or turrets. That was instant game over.


One suggestion is to include another type of assaulting 'faction', which assaults with a swarm of small, individually weak units. Difficult to balance tho.

[Grishnerf]

example: If you remove snipers/hunting rifles from the game or nerf them, a couple of scythers or a single caterpillar will total your colony.
I remember the times I got a small mechanid assault on my tribals before they got sniper rifles or turrets. That was instant game over.

just wait with 3-4 People behind a Corner and let the scyther come around.
when it aims at you (warmup time) you own it in close range with 1 volley of Charge riffles.
no injuries.
the scythers always appear first at your base (movement Speed)
i rarely use sniper rifles in my games and have not really a Problem with not using it.

[NeverPire]

One suggestion is to include another type of assaulting 'faction', which assaults with a swarm of small, individually weak units. Difficult to balance tho.

Tribal raids are exactly you are proposing.

[Lightzy]

just wait with 3-4 People behind a Corner and let the scyther come around.
when it aims at you (warmup time) you own it in close range with 1 volley of Charge riffles.
no injuries.
the scythers always appear first at your base (movement Speed)
i rarely use sniper rifles in my games and have not really a Problem with not using it.

I'm saying they're a problem before sniper or hunting rifles and your solution is  mass charge rifles, ok. Good job.

Tribal raids are exactly you are proposing.
[/quote

No, tribal raids are exactly what YOU THINK I'm proposing. I'm talking about much more numerous, small threats. Tribal raids only get big towards endgame, if you have like 20 colonists and a map-sized colony. Before that they're pretty small. Small enough for like, a killbox of 5-7 turrets and some traps to handle. And before THAT, they're the same size as pirate raids.

[NeverPire]

No, tribal raids are exactly what YOU THINK I'm proposing. I'm talking about much more numerous, small threats. Tribal raids only get big towards endgame, if you have like 20 colonists and a map-sized colony. Before that they're pretty small. Small enough for like, a killbox of 5-7 turrets and some traps to handle. And before THAT, they're the same size as pirate raids.

Let's think about players who don't use any kilbox before asking for more numerous raids.

[Grishnerf]

just wait with 3-4 People behind a Corner and let the scyther come around.
when it aims at you (warmup time) you own it in close range with 1 volley of Charge riffles.
no injuries.
the scythers always appear first at your base (movement Speed)
i rarely use sniper rifles in my games and have not really a Problem with not using it.

I'm saying they're a problem before sniper or hunting rifles and your solution is  mass charge rifles, ok. Good job.

it was just an example.
it works the same with shotguns or assault rifles.
you just abuse the warmup time of the scyther behind a Corner in Close range.


just your Statement, that without sniper rifles you have no Chance against few scyther made me laugh, thats all.