Stronger/Synergetic Enemies > More Enemies

[O Negative]

Abstract
I can't speak for everyone on this, because I'm sure there are those that get a kick out of slaughtering thousands of tribals; but, I'm a player that would prefer to see higher-tier enemy designs in the late game. More specifically, I'm intersted in enemy team synergy and how to use knowledge of that synergy to cripple raiders by strategically eliminating enemies and enemy types. Currently, mechanoids are the highest tier of enemy we are put against, and they are almost completely bare-bones. I would even argue that they don't have as many raid strategy options as human raiders. So, I've come up with some - hopefully original - ideas.

Mechanoids
* Centipedes with mortars
* Centipedes/Scythers that act as sappers
* Mechanoids land with a building/structure/item that disables all electronics on the map (like a solar flare)
* New mechanoid types (contribute opportunities for expanding lore)
     + Engineer - Repairs/doctors mechanoids while raiding; possibly responsible for building mechanoid structures during raids.
     + Nanobot - Fragile, small mechanoids that specialize in the destruction/decomposition of raw resources; prioritize player resources as targets over pawns.

Pirates / Outlanders / Tribals
* Raiders bring their tamed/domesticated animals as living weapons. Simulates a better sense of self-preservation by human factions.
     + Pirates bring boomrats & wargs
     + Outlanders bring dogs (ie. labs)
     + Tribals bring wolves and wild boars (possibly thrumbo)
* Specialized pawn brings a harmful ancient artifact (ie. insanity lance) with them & uses it on one (or more) of your colonists.

[BoogieMan]

Looks interesting to me.

Maybe little kamikaze bots that look for turrets and power generators and explodes with an EMP burst that disables them for a time.

[SpaceDorf]

I like the suggestions in general, some of them are allready tried by mods, but having to find tactics against more strategic action enemies sounds like a real good idea.

The first thing that does not quite fit is this :
* Mechanoids land with a building/structure/item that disables all electronics on the map (like a solar flare)
- Would that not be suicide for the mechanoids ?

but it actually spawned some fitting ideas :
Mechanoid implant : EMP Shield, some mechanoids are immune to emp.
What if pirates had a similiar building ?

EMP Rocket launchers ..
EMP attacks on Buildings can cause the dreaded Zzzzzt. event.

Pirate Sieges being a diversion sometimes.
When you deal with the siege a couple of droppods come down in or near your base to get some of the good stuff ..

Droppod reinforcements in general.

Fake Visitors. The actual simplest solutions for Pirates. Lying.
"Of course we are from that Tribe .. yes the concept of those pants you are wearing endeared us and we made our own .. "

[Canute]

People still argue how to deal with scyther
https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=34468.0
and you want even raise the difficult ! :-)

But hey i like it.
You could raise the difficult, when you can let attackers move at formations.
When mechanoids appear, beside crash land at your colony, the scyther are mosttimes dead before even the slow centipeds are in range.
You should assign a Raid leader, and all other follow it/him at the same speed. And only when the raid leader attack, the raid is free to attack too. Ofcouse the raid leader should defend his raid, to prevent that sniper reduce the raidmember from the side.

[Bolgfred]

     + Nanobot - Fragile, small mechanoids that specialize in the destruction/decomposition of raw resources; prioritize player resources as targets over pawns.

Gniar! I will hate those tiny little, wood wrecking, steel stealing, food flaming, silver soakers!
Totally agree on Nanobots! Idea is great! I think they could also spawn without a mechanoid raid, like beavers and roam the whole map, to eat ressources until they be stopped(or captured and industrialized into a garbage collector).

Firstly, I think the game is not designed for big battles and war. By this I think the general number of attacks should be kept quite low, so we might get away from killboxes in a far future. This could be achieved by stronger enemies, coming in smaller groups and more characteristic attacks, which leads to:

Secondish, The general attack pattern of each attackers should be changed, depending on their faction, to make them more unique and require their own strategy. Their behaviour could look like this:

Raiders
Get close to the colony base, and demand goods/slaves/silver. If this wish isn't fulfilled, they will attack smart. If all their sappers are dead, they retreat and promise revenge -> bigger attack/siege will come soon.
If you kill the leader they will not come back for a long time. If captured, can be sold back to them.

Tribals
Scout the base (e.g. run one time around it, if possible), then charge stupidly.

Mechanoids
Attack without delay. Rocket launcher attack everything on sight, while walking towards the base. Laser or machine guns do same but do not shot walls(only items, pawns, doors)

-Mechanoid Assassins
If there are only scythers, they won't run into the base. They will patrol far away, trying to sniping colonists. If all pawns hide, they will just wait for a long time(one seaon maybe) then, leave the map, or deactivate himself( low battery).

Cilivilian
Other friendly colonists show up, set up base and start chopping wood, hunting animals and mining ressources. When they arrive they send you a list of things they try to gather and promise you something in return if you agree. There are multiple ways to send them away:

1. Kill them
2. Forbid Camp&Chase away
3. Transfer ressources they are looking for
4. Sabotage (by dismantling/destroying they fridge at night, they go home by themself if their food goes bad)

[Jibbles]

Your ideas aren't bad at all. I've given some thought to this and I guess I wanted to bring up some potential flaws. So please don't take it as "this shouldn't be in the game."

I don't think raids with animals would amp up the difficulty or change things all that much.  They'll probably be dumb... Would only attack doors when it come to structures? Provide plenty meat/leather when killed. They're just easier to kill than people in most situations. Really, the only difficult thing about it I can think of is that animals may not flee when you've killed most of them.

I see some flaws with engineers repairing mechanoids but that's all just speculation. So I decided not to go there.

Kamikaze and nanobots idea is something I've been wanting to see
I definitely agree how mechanoids should act somewhat similar to sappers.

Personally, I would find raids more interesting if there's a good mix of; Luring you out of your base, while also creating havoc at your base.  SpaceDorf mentions pirate sieges being a diversion while drop pods come in. That's a similar example of what I would like to see.  Your idea of engineers building mechanoid structures could help implement these types of scenarios which would be pretty damn cool.

[O Negative]

Hey thanks for all of the feedback, everyone! I just realized I posted this in the wrong thread; it should be in suggestions when it's in general discussion. Woops! Mods, feel free to move this!

I'm not offended by anybody disagreeing with my ideas here, and I actually welcome constructive criticism.

There are a lot of good ideas here, and it would be cool to see them continue and be refined even further. Ideally, the smallest changes make the biggest impacts and are the most likely to get implemented (because time is money folks, time is money).

[SpaceDorf]

You should assign a Raid leader, and all other follow it/him at the same speed. And only when the raid leader attack, the raid is free to attack too. Ofcouse the raid leader should defend his raid, to prevent that sniper reduce the raidmember from the side.

THIS ! .. that alone will make raids a truckload moar difficult to deal with ..
Imagine a Tribal raid .. just in Range of their Longbows and staying there .. firing away merrily while the rest protects the longbowmen ..

[kubolek01]

Game still can be hardened by using dev tools, maybe more bad events as you wish to or all out multi faction raid, anything you want.

[SpaceDorf]

Game still can be hardened by using dev tools, maybe more bad events as you wish to or all out multi faction raid, anything you want.

That is exactly the opposite of what I want .. and I guess this is also true for ONegative.