Addition to raiders

[Kyle]

I've been playing the game for about 2 hours on 2x speed and I've had 3 attacks by raiders. The third destroyed my whole colony. The first two were alright sizes of raiders but the third was too much, I had at least 15 auto turrets set up and they got destroyed within second. Maybe every time the raiders attack they could have similar amount of numbers with them or even raiders that have been injured and have come back for more from the previous raid? I'm struggling to get by the 3rd raid as it seems like they double up each raid.

[Semmy]

make sure you got chokepoints for them to go through.

I hardly ever use more than 3 or 4 turrets. But they are all strategically placed in the mountain hallways.
Also dont forgot to flank and make use of coverage.

[Kyle]

make sure you got chokepoints for them to go through.

I hardly ever use more than 3 or 4 turrets. But they are all strategically placed in the mountain hallways.
Also dont forgot to flank and make use of coverage.

What do you mean by chokepoints? and how do you set them?

[CommieKazie]

make sure you got chokepoints for them to go through.

I hardly ever use more than 3 or 4 turrets. But they are all strategically placed in the mountain hallways.
Also dont forgot to flank and make use of coverage.

What do you mean by chokepoints? and how do you set them?

This is what he means by "choke point"
http://bit.ly/1a7WKKh

[Blitz]

Let me introduce you to my Waffle Defense system:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=v2TyxS036eg#t=288

[Semmy]

make sure you got chokepoints for them to go through.

I hardly ever use more than 3 or 4 turrets. But they are all strategically placed in the mountain hallways.
Also dont forgot to flank and make use of coverage.

What do you mean by chokepoints? and how do you set them?

https://www.dropbox.com/s/fqbqhe2ydc625vw/chokepoint.jpg

is an example.
The first part my guys are hiding are part natural and part wall.
They can hide.
After that they can retreat into the mountain.
besides every turret 1 of the shotgun guys retreat.
The others retreat around the further corners.
Harrasing the enemy while i slowly retreat into my base.

This is just a simple and small setup.
it can be done much larger

[nomadseifer]

This topic is scaring me.  That 'waffle-defense' looks to me like Combat is broken in the game.  There is no way Tynan, or any developer, is going to get ahead of the players in terms of enemy AI that can compete against player creativity at all in this type of sandbox world.  Eventually, every experienced player is going to be using some form of a Tower-Defense model to completely obliterate raiders.  To even offer some challenge to that type of defense would probably take weeks of AI work.  I don't know what the solution is, but 40 raiders funneling to their death doesn't seem like a lot of fun past the first two or three times. 

[Tynan]

Don't worry nomad, breaking the waffle thing isn't as hard as you might think. Give me a version or two

[Blitz]

Well, at least I have a few more versions!

[Spike]

I do hope that you don't get lured into the mindset of "defeating" the player.  Just because someone comes up with an imaginative way to fend off pirates shouldn't automatically get a patch to break that.  Give us the tools to do a variety of things, tweak the difficulty setting to what we want to fight, and let us go to it.  Take Dwarf Fortress as an example - there are so many ways the player can defeat invaders (drowning traps are my favorite).  Militia, a hallway lined with traps, or even a huge complex thing that ends up throwing minecart loads of lava at the enemy.

But please don't fall for the "me versus the player" type of mindset.  You are the guide in the realm of Dungeons and Dra... err, Rimworld.  Not the enemy.

[GC13]

I think the Death Waffle clearly falls into the category of silly behavior that needs to be quashed. "Oh hey, look at that difficult terrain by the one opening in their wall, with a blasting charge right by it. Gee, I wonder if I should blast a hole in the wall where it's probably safer? No, I'll just zip past the blasting charge and into the killing zone."

[Tynan]

Don't worry Spike. My intent is not to "defeat the player" I could do that easily. My intent is to create situations where the player always has something to think about and something to do.

[nomadseifer]

Spike, I don't worry about the design getting into a mindset of 'defeating' the player.  But stuff like the waffle defense needs to go.  It certainly doesn't contribute to immersion and really does turn the game into tower defense.

Tynan, I certainly trust that you have some tricks up your sleeve, and I can think of a few ways to defeat the waffle defense myself.  But I honestly don't know how anyone can make the AI capable of matching a creative player in general.  I say that not as a lack of confidence in you, but because I've not experienced truly competitive AI before, and I'm talking AAA games with money to throw at the problem.  And this world is more modifiable than most other games out there which means the enemy AI has more dynamic information to deal with.   

The only way that I can see it being a challenge is if they refuse to charge in.  So I'm going to hop on board with GC13 and say that raiders really need to be more risk averse.  If they come up to your base, and theres no way in but through a clear trap. They should just sit and wait.  With no time limit.  Force the player to come to them.  Really, a group of raiders with a couple of RPG's would mess things up real quick.  But that might seem unbalanced.  Nothing particularly clever about the enemy having a bazooka. 

[Spike]

The way I see it is that the player should have a set of tools that they can use in a variety of ways.  In games like this (Dwarf Fortress, Gnomoria) I tend to be an isolationist - wall off an area and live it in, expanding cautiously later on.  That has the built-in limitation of making it harder for me to use anything in the rest of the map.

The enemy should have a set of tools as well, or there should be a variety of enemies that act in different ways.  Some will be stupid and charge blindly in regardless of traps, while others use other means to circumvent your defenses.  The problem is that the developer has to code a limited set of reactions, while hundreds or thousands of players come up with defenses.  As nomadseifer says, creative players will find things the developer never thought of.

Why say "the waffle defense has to go"?  Part of the game is that movement speed is affected by terrain.  How different is the waffle defense from forcing enemies to approach through sand, in theory?  Yes, the speed reduction is quite different.  The theory is the same - build choke-points and funnel the enemy.  How different would it be to use barbed wire instead of sandbags?

I don't like to bring up a complaint without suggesting an alternative.  So...  (and I'll preface these thoughts by saying I have no idea how hard it would be to code the behavior of the AI) 

I think I saw a pirate in one video destroy a wall when there was no way through.  What if the AI could also decide the "open route" will take too long (analyzing terrain speed modifiers) and decide to go through a nearby constructed wall instead?  Why not clear the path with grenades, or in the case of barbed wire, with pliers?  Or maybe using the Fear mechanic, they could see the mass of bodies & blood ahead, and look for an alternate route.  Or instead of coding the behavior (or in addition), approach it through equipment.  If a pirate spawns with bombs instead of a pistol, they will not head into the colony; instead they will go to the closest structure and blow it up.

[starlight]

Don't worry nomad, breaking the waffle thing isn't as hard as you might think. Give me a version or two

Note: Have not (yet) seen the Waffle Defense video.

How difficult would it be for the AI to calculate the risk of passing through an open path which is attackable by turrets.
If the risk is high enough, break through walls. (You are going to support breaking through walls, right. This is my favourite not-yet-implemented in Dwarf Fortress feature).

Give mid to high level raiders, that is, after the game has advanced a few hours: sonic equipment.
Which lets them determine where your structures and lets them decide where to dig.