How do you deal with infestations?

Started by MeowRailroad, October 02, 2016, 11:38:38 AM

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MeowRailroad

For me infestations are usually huge problems that down half of my colonists while raids are simple and easy to deal with. What is the best strategy for dealing with an infestation? Even with good weapons you can't really use them in the tunnels and the colonists just get ganged up on by the bugs. It would be nice if the initial bug spawns were a bit smaller so you don't have to immediately deal with 4 megaspiders and 4 assorted smaller bugs. The infestation should start small and if you don't deal with it quickly it becomes a bigger problem.
Quote from: Tynan on December 02, 2016, 05:24:06 PM
This is like being in a remote fishing town in Libera and asking, "Why can't I just pay one of the fishermen $10 to take me back to Los Angeles?"

avilmask

When you tunnel through mountains, always make them long, so you can shoot on max distance, with very short branches, so insects will wander in that tunnels.
Just gather your whole mob, stand on another side of the tunnel and shoot whatever you can before it reach you.

mCharger

I usually like to play on colder, mountainous biomes so I will usually turn my heating systems up to about 300 degrees F and cook them. If it's a particularly cold time (like 10F or below), I will turn off the heat and turn on my A/C and try and freeze them out. It takes a while and there usually is some collateral damage but I don't lose any colonists.

Serenity

1.) Kill it with fire. Molotovs or incendiary launchers against the hives themselves
or
2.) Using one unlucky bastard to kite one or two bugs at a time in front of the others

Also build your base with this in mind. As said a long 2 wide hallway with doors on the side. All rooms except for the bedrooms should have at least two exits. So there aren't many dead ends where people can be trapped. And you can go through other rooms to get around the bugs.

mumblemumble

If you want a standup fight, get one good melee user / combat animal in the front, and a series of gunners in the back, preferably high damage weapons like charge rifles, shotguns, Heavy SMGs, LMGs, or hunting rifles. Then just let the melee / animal take the brunt of the melee, while you shoot past and cut them up...helps if you have gaps of 3 wide hallways breaking up the regular 1 wide, of vice versa, so you can use the 1 wide as a bottleneck. Since they are melee class, having a bottle neck and plenty of gunners to shoot them can make the difference between a few lost fingers, and a decimated colony.
Why to people worry about following their heart? Its lodged in your chest, you won't accidentally leave it behind.

-----

Its bad because reasons, and if you don't know the reasons, you are horrible. You cannot ask what the reasons are or else you doubt it. But the reasons are irrefutable. Logic.

carbon

In close quarters, some combination of hit-and-run with Machine pistols (or pistols or shotguns) through doors -and/or- burning them out with molatovs.
Which you should use depends on what weapons you have and where the bugs are at (i.e. don't burn your whole base down).

In open environments, just line up your best combat folks and mow them down from a safe distance. If they start getting close, just back out of aggro range and let them wander back home.
Repeat until done.

---

I haven't lost a single pawn to infestations as far as I can remember. Although I haven't built a mountain fortress in several alphas, so that helps.

Razzoriel

If there's a problem with a mechanic being too radical in how badly it affects the game, you don't need to completely remove it. Work it so it keeps being something crucial, but amendable.

Tynan could invent something like "Colonist is having second thoughts on the colony...". Then you know that if he keeps unhappy, then you'll need to imprison/put him on stasis or do something that prevents him from doing so if he's crucial for your colony. If he isn't, tough luck.

Then again, I agree with this mechanic being too radical the way it was implemented.

Razzoriel

Grenades+3v1 melee walls.

Grenade the infested room if it's too small to catch the bugs not engaged. Put 3 pawns in melee mode to take any bug trying to engage the grenadier.

BetaSpectre

I usually use animal swarms. Then just shoot with no regard of my animals.
IMO the best way sounds like use of a system to just freeze/heat them to death.
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                           TO WAR WE GO

Plasmatic

Quote from: BetaSpectre on October 03, 2016, 04:42:59 AM
I usually use animal swarms. Then just shoot with no regard of my animals.
IMO the best way sounds like use of a system to just freeze/heat them to death.

Hmm.. an army of chickens? they breed quickly if you let the hens in with the roosters..

Arctic_fox

way i usually do it is have my base devided into squares in a grid shape with a 1 space tile inbetween every room, fill this space with wood (wooden walls or floor then cancel and forbid the wood) add doors that usually stay forbidden with one leading inside the main room made of wood with a chair infront of it and a stone fore on the outside of the square, when a swarm spawns in a room just go to the corosponding square open the stone door and light the wood then evac the area and forbid the door, with each room being walled off from each other it keeps the risk to the rest of the base low and can spike the temps inside to 500+ usually you lose the contents of the room unless you stuff a fire popper or 2 inside but the bugs still die of heat stroke because you just turned the room into a giant oven.

the better way to do it is just put doors EVERYWHERE and keep several stockpiles of arty shells and such in diffrent areas, then play agro pingpong and leave ied traps in fun places, This is why i tend to split up bedrooms and have spare beds in them and food stores in diffrent places, so if this happens i can kite them around without a mass break risk amd pick them off at my lesure, and if they all go to sleep sneak a pawn in to lay wood and chuck a molotove in.

as with irl there are very few problems in rimworld that can not be solved with vigorous and liberal application of fire, and if fire fails then as a rule you didnt use enough.

MeowRailroad

I lost the original colony, but in my next one I'll make sure to put a few coolers with exhaust going into the base, then section off the base and make each section have an exit. It's probably better if the colonists have to spend a few nights in sleeping spots in a shack outside of the base then to have them all die.
Quote from: Tynan on December 02, 2016, 05:24:06 PM
This is like being in a remote fishing town in Libera and asking, "Why can't I just pay one of the fishermen $10 to take me back to Los Angeles?"

stu89pid

Installing a bionic leg (or even better with two) on your best shooting colonist is a game changer. You get a 20% movement speedboost from a bionic leg, and allows you to kite stuff so much better.

A bionic legged colonist combined with the above mentioned strategies of mining long straight tunnels so the infestations are manageable. If you mine single tile mazes, it will be extremely difficult to handle without losing many colonists as you will have to get within one or two tiles to engage the bugs. Bonus if you mine your tunnels two spaces wide so you can have more people shooting at the bugs at once without friendly fire.

BetaSpectre

Quote from: Plasmatic on October 03, 2016, 08:06:59 AM
Quote from: BetaSpectre on October 03, 2016, 04:42:59 AM
I usually use animal swarms. Then just shoot with no regard of my animals.
IMO the best way sounds like use of a system to just freeze/heat them to death.

Hmm.. an army of chickens? they breed quickly if you let the hens in with the roosters..
Birds walk too slowly, I prefer bears, muffalo, and dogs. I buy elephants or other big smart beasts that can fight and haul if I can get male + female version at the same time as well.

But if there's time to prepare for something chickens work too, animals spread around your colonists and can be like bait, or released to enter melee. The idea is to have a meat grinder to prevent harm to your colonists to start out with anyway. Also it trains doctor after the fight.
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▂█▃▃▅▅███/█████\█[<BSS>█\███▅▅▅▃▂
◥████████████████████████████████◤
                           TO WAR WE GO

Castiel

Hit and run tactics are the most effective. I usually just leave them there (I dont build into mountains because I lost a colony to a hive in base) until night and then go in and just light the hives on fire, shut the doors to my mine and then let them starve to death. Your best option is always to play it out for as long as possible, and killing the hives before they can respawn new insectoids. If it is in your base then the conditions are always going to be based on your judgement as everyone builds bases differently. The most effective methods are usually by killing them through attrition or hit and run tactics as direct encounters often lead to a dead colony.