preemptive attack tactics

[keylocke]

so i was having a go with preemptive attacks.

the cool thing about alpha3 is that raiders don't initiate an early attack when players decide to have a go with them. so what i did was i trained all of my colonists using M24s (i don't use this gun for my defense but i keep a few of them handy just in case) and repeatedly sent them off hunting muffalos each time a new herd spawns to increase their shooting skills so i can send them off on a preemptive attack to snipe a few of the raiders while prepping and what happened is this :

-i try to inch my way towards the enemy perimeter and observe the enemy movement.
-when the enemy snipers peel off from the herd, i arrange my snipers into position and wait for them to fire a shot and then let them retreat a few tiles back. so that the enemy snipers will charge in but i always get the first shot.
-i do this repeatedly until the enemy snipers die off or until i've baited them far enough that they decide to fall back to their starting position.

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-the problem with this is that in order to be effective (on tough cleo), i have to send off all of my colonists so they have an even chance against a larger group of enemy snipers on an open field. but the window of opportunity for preemptive attacks is too short most of the time, i can only pick off 1 or 2 enemy snipers (out of 50+ raiders) before the alert for raiders initiating their attack pops in. barely even making a dent on the enemy strength before i am forced to fall back on my defenses.

-keeping colonists drafted for longer times mean they have a higher chance for mental breaks. doing a preemptive attack means that each colonist will have to sit in on both offensive and defensive battles.

-when my colonists finally reach the base i have to direct them to swap their sniper gear to their respective defensive gear. this makes me lose the battle initiative since most of the time, the raiders will be hot on my heels and by the time my defenders get into position, the raider swarm is already flooding my tier 1 killzone, forcing me to fall back on my tier 2 defenses.

-currently, preemptive attacks have higher risks than rewards. perhaps if the raiders take a longer time to prepare their attack, sending a sniper team could actually make a dent on enemy strength. but right now, it doesn't. there's not enough time for a preemptive attack to actually make a difference.

-if i have colonists to spare, i could probably send a sniper squad doing guerrilla tactics to draw some of the raiders away, while keeping the rest of my colonists on defense. but this is just 'distraction' rather than an offensive battle. players can't seem to win without relying on clever defenses (unless using cheats or mods).  it's basically a war of attrition.

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-but what about artillery? this is the tough part. which means i have to divide my troops into 3 groups. 1 defense, 1 offense, and 1 distraction. i'll have to distract the enemy artillery defenders then send my offensive squad to wipe out the artillery. meanwhile i need to keep enough defenders on my base to halt the larger bulk of the enemy forces, and then outflank them with my offensive squad after they take out the artillery.

-or i can use some of my artillery against their artillery, and aim the rest of my artillery to create bombardment zones near the entrance of a choke point. (assuming that artillery has the ability to force fire on the ground, unlike turrets)

anyways, fun times ahead. 

[Tynan]

I'm looking forward to getting the artillery in and rebalancing a bit for counter-siege battles.

[keylocke]

thanks, that would be awesome! 

other stats that the players can find useful in planning their offense/defense:

-enemy prep timer (shows how long before the enemy initiates an attack or how long before they can prep their artillery)
-total number of raiders. (so the player knows how screwed up they are.  lol )
-tally of raider equipment (ie: 4 frags, 2 molotovs, 6 m24s, 10 R4s, 3 miniguns, etc..) so the player knows what they're up against, instead of clicking on each raider to see their gear.

-maybe create an equipment that needs to be researched (like radar or telescope or something) before they can make these stats visible.

[Col_Jessep]

Speaking of balance, I would like to draw your attention to two things, Tynan:
Holing up in a mountain is still extremely powerful compared to building your colony in the open. If you don't rely on turrets (I stopped building them at all) you don't even have to worry about solar flares.

The other thing is that rescuing incapacitated colonist becomes a serious issue if you want to lead a preemptive strike against raiders. I lost a couple of colonists because they didn't make it back to base in time. Not to mention that you lose another valuable gun if you assign somebody to rescue a colonist.
You talked about giving colonists an inventory, Tynan. Could they carry a medpack and patch each other up with it? At least enough so that they can drag themselves back to base? I think that would help confronting raiders outside the base.

[ShadowTani]

I only do preemptive attacks myself for now if the attackers are mostly grenadiers. Where the attacks are meant to cause as much damage as possible before I pull back to the primary defenses rather than cause a decisive victory. This usually means a small squad of two snipers and one rifle guy to cover and bait.

[keylocke]

I only do preemptive attacks myself for now if the attackers are mostly grenadiers. Where the attacks are meant to cause as much damage as possible before I pull back to the primary defenses rather than cause a decisive victory. This usually means a small squad of two snipers and one rifle guy to cover and bait.

i do this too during the start phase (usually less than 100 days) when the raiders aren't a swarm yet, 'coz in the end game, the enemy have enough snipers (around a dozen) that if you let them get a single shot, one of your troops can die or get KO'd from concentrated sniper fire for each enemy volley, which is why mobility is so important.

besides, it's kinda hard to cherry pick prime targets (ie: grenadiers and molotovers) in end game swarms, but it's doable. though it still doesn't make much of a dent when the enemy has around a dozen of those guys and the player only has a few minutes to kill a couple of prime targets before the raider attack gets initiated, 'coz there's just not enough time for a preemptive against a large swarm to make a difference. 

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maybe if the prepping time for raiders will increase along with the number of raiders, preemptive strikes against enemy swarms could be feasible, so that the larger the enemy force, the longer it will take for them to prep their attack. giving enough time for players to launch a crippling offensive attack.

[ShadowTani]

i do this too during the start phase (usually less than 100 days) when the raiders aren't a swarm yet, 'coz in the end game, the enemy have enough snipers (around a dozen) that if you let them get a single shot, one of your troops can die or get KO'd from concentrated sniper fire for each enemy volley, which is why mobility is so important.

I dunno, I always keep my colony population low. So it doesn't seem to matter much to me if I'm 100 days in or less, because I still only experience relative small raids. xD Unless some of the other storytellers scale more hardcore than Randy that way? I really haven't used the other storytellers since pre-alpha...

[keylocke]

ah, i've kinda ditched randy lately 'coz end game isn't very much different from mid game, so i've been playing on vanilla tough cleopatra these days since i kinda enjoy it's end game.

fun times.