Anti-sniper siege with off-the-shelf elements

[Wex]

All you need then is an insanity lance. If you sent the firing pawn into berserk, the others will shoot inside the "fortress" to stop them. Likely damaging the mortar. And if one of them has grenades...

[Kegereneku]

I don't think you need to have them build literal wall, players would simply off the rest THEN swarm in.

However the AI could be rewritten to always have their Sniper and longest range weapon in front (behind the sandbag), and while we are at it, I can imagine a simple set of AI behavior (with I think failsafe trigger) that would disrupt all know methods to EXPLOIT.

[b0rsuk]

Without any ranged weapons, you no longer need to worry about the range of your own fighters. Instead of a sniper you can safely use your entire colony to deal with the siege, with zero risk.

A few charge rifles and someone with EMP nades would make this a 30 second turkey shoot. 

Because equipping a few people with charge rifles and EMP grenades is so much easier than getting a single sniper rifle. Yeah, right.

For people who don't have multiple copies of the most advanced weapon in the game, this would be an unique challenge. Remember they're shelling your colony while you're fighting them, and if you send multiple people you're going to have fun with incendiary mortars.

I don't think you need to have them build literal wall, players would simply off the rest THEN swarm in.

Have you tried shooting shielded pirates to death ? It takes A LOT of time. Now imagine what happens if you try to shoot shielders who stay in cover, while their mortars are firing.

[b0rsuk]

All you need then is an insanity lance. If you sent the firing pawn into berserk, the others will shoot inside the "fortress" to stop them. Likely damaging the mortar. And if one of them has grenades...

And good, that would be something different. Insanity lances are expensive and more importantly rare. It's way easier to loot, buy or craft a sniper rifle than get an insanity lance. You may get 2 animal pulsers instead.

[Lightzy]

Mortars are freakin annoying. When you can't build some of your own to fire at them, they'll usually leave you trying to put out fires indefinitely.
Happened to me in one of my first games. It was like a week of just putting out fires until finally I went fuckit and suicided my 5 guys on a riflemen team with mortars raining down on them.

Won somehow, but obviously the whole colony home was a big smouldering pile by then, because the firefighters had to go fight.


It was fun though.
Not sure mortar teams need much more help, cuz unless you get them before they build the mortars, they'll cause you more than enough damage to justify their "crisis" classification.

[Kegereneku]

Have you tried shooting shielded pirates to death ? It takes A LOT of time. Now imagine what happens if you try to shoot shielders who stay in cover, while their mortars are firing.

Why would I do that ? If the siege-AI wasn't stupid they would attack you as soon as one of them "hear" shooting and retreat if you try to lure them to your base.
You deal with Shielded pirate with guns, lots of guns. Or more melee, your choice.

[Vagabond]

I agree with Kegereneku on this. Better AI would be preferable.

On the other hand. . . Fog of War. Fog of war and Line of Sigh would make combat much more interesting! Think it meshes well with the spirit of this. My ideas on this, from previous posts:

https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=20219.msg221244#msg221244
https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=16339.msg178866#msg178866
https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=16510.msg178853#msg178853

If raiders did build, if they continue to bomb and such, I think we need FoW/LoS. They need to be able to see us, we need to be able to see them. The utter confusion when shells start exploding on your base due to a lack of diligence in maintaining awareness of your territory... Would be so beautiful.

[b0rsuk]

I agree with Kegereneku on this. Better AI would be preferable.

Why not have both ?

[Kegereneku]

Because this is "Rimworld", not "Wargameworld". Upgrading the AI is more efficient.

We know that some players here won't be happy until the game is about making Barrack, training soldiers and fighting a persistent enemy Base with tank & etc. So I'm not going to restart the FoW/veil discussion. Both concept goes against the core mechanics of Rimworld as an event-driven Story-generator.

I'm out of this discussion.

[Listen1]

FoW and Unveiling are out of question, but a Siege mechanic where the attackers build better defenses is necessary. If you had to move to the siege with grenadiers at night, had to fight off attack wargs and etc, would make the event far more interesting.

Although what I said it is alot of work in a single event, maybe a mod would better fit for it. b0rsuk suggestion can be added to the game to make this event more difficult.

"The siegers will try to set fortifications, once they are done you will not be able to break the siege easily"

[b0rsuk]

For a start, they could learn to USE the sandbags they build!

[Reviire]

Because this is "Rimworld", not "Wargameworld". Upgrading the AI is more efficient.

We know that some players here won't be happy until the game is about making Barrack, training soldiers and fighting a persistent enemy Base with tank & etc. So I'm not going to restart the FoW/veil discussion. Both concept goes against the core mechanics of Rimworld as an event-driven Story-generator.

I'm out of this discussion.

Better ai would be great. The ai doesn't attempt to use any tactic or strategy, and just run into a meat grinder constantly. They need to start adapting, and possibly just get expanded sieges in general. Why do they attempt to shell a mountain base, and why do they walk into kill boxes? Do they have no threat assessment or anything?

[Pax_Empyrean]

Making a smarter AI is hard. It's probably better to look for ways to make interesting scenarios within the existing AI constraints. Making siege groups more likely to include sniper rifles would make it harder to just pick them all off with impunity from long range.

[Kegereneku]

For a start, they could learn to USE the sandbags they build!

My point precisely.
The game know where it build the sandbag, the game know at which distance your colonist are from them, and it can obviously know which of his weapon have longer range.

From there I'll say that even a simpler AI change than the last one would wreak as much havoc as the one that destroy Killbox and drink the tears of the players who depended on Exploit to survive.
...all without adding any wall/turret/weapon. And if you add ATTACK DOG for Melee Raiders you even crush hopes.

My personal objective being that we actually have to ask Tynan to REDUCE the number of raiders.

In fact I've made a thread to gather tactic ideas.

Making a smarter AI is hard. It's probably better to look for ways to make interesting scenarios within the existing AI constraints. Making siege groups more likely to include sniper rifles would make it harder to just pick them all off with impunity from long range.

My trick around that is to not make it "smarter" but to give it automated behavior that counter any (easy) exploit known.