Making sieges interesting

[Riithi]

The raids in their current form have a kind of drawback.
Since we as players can impose the battlefield on the AI we have a huge advantage (killboxes). By giving the incoming raids more tools to alter the terrain themselves we as players can't turtle as hard anymore.

I was thinking in the lines o the following:
Have a stonewalled fortress? RPG kills the wall, raiders come in.
Having a doctor evil lair in the mountain? Raiders go dig a tunnel into your base.
Ofcourse you can then sally forth and kill them when they are digging.

For my personal preference I would like the combat to be more about the colonists and less about the fortress that I built.

Another gripe is that a lot of the raiders rush for point blank range, a more drawn out medium range gunfight would make for more interesting gameplay imo.

[Jones-250]

Well, there's been discussion about adding "siege weapons", such as light and heavy mortars + artillery that can lob explosives over walls. This would give the raiders the option of shelling before advancing. By the beforementioned i mean softening your cozy camping spots and perhaps ripping a few new orfaces to your colonists from range before storming the fort. This also may encourage the player to come out of his/her fortress in order to knock out the cowardly fire-support units that are blasting up the farmland.
And do not forget that some pirate raids are dropped right in the middle of your colony in order to bypass as much of the defences as possible.

I really do not support the concept of digging, as it might ruin the terrain in the long run. Well, fortunately they can break walls...

[Pulaskimask]

More seige ideas are always nice. Maybe you could have a spy who looks like a visitor from a friendly group enter your base, but they are actually a pirate and they are sabotaging your defenses. You can also equip enemies with explosives for breaching through defenses. This can range from placing some C4 against a wall, and having it blow up and destroy/damage everything in its vicinity, to a more sophisticated technology like the one the military uses which looks like your placing an actual door onto a wall but it fires a shape-charged explosive straight forward and allows people to essentially make a door into the sides of buildings.

I really do not support the concept of digging, as it might ruin the terrain in the long run.

You could make digging just be like the opposite of the pirates dropping in from orbit. Have the raiders randomly pop out of the ground but have nothing special actually happen to the ground. This would help attack those bases that are carved into caves and have only one entrance which leads to a killbox.

[Untrustedlife]

More seige ideas are always nice. Maybe you could have a spy who looks like a visitor from a friendly group enter your base, but they are actually a pirate and they are sabotaging your defenses. You can also equip enemies with explosives for breaching through defenses. This can range from placing some C4 against a wall, and having it blow up and destroy/damage everything in its vicinity, to a more sophisticated technology like the one the military uses which looks like your placing an actual door onto a wall but it fires a shape-charged explosive straight forward and allows people to essentially make a door into the sides of buildings.

I really do not support the concept of digging, as it might ruin the terrain in the long run.

You could make digging just be like the opposite of the pirates dropping in from orbit. Have the raiders randomly pop out of the ground but have nothing special actually happen to the ground. This would help attack those bases that are carved into caves and have only one entrance which leads to a killbox.

we dont have z levels, so good point.

[Morrigi]

I absolutely support the addition of mortars. They make a huge amount of sense in the environment of Rimworld - Easy to produce, relatively light, can be used by anybody (with basic training, if targeting computers are involved), and, of course, capable of indirect fire.

[Nasikabatrachus]

In order to fully invest a player colony, sieges will have to be pretty large. If a poorly-armed, small siege force arrives, a squad of colonists could crush its various nodes one by one with little trouble. But you also don't want it to be too big to deal with. A broken siege is a broken siege. The siege AI should take some kind of measure of how well the siege is doing. If, say, half of its units are gone, and the player is attacking, that might be a good time to retreat.

Unless I'm mistaken, sieges of small places often begin with an initial assault, unless the target is clearly too well-defended for a direct attack. A good siege AI should know how to send an initial assault and withdraw it if resistance is too strong, as well as when to harass the player with small attacks. The current "fleeing in panic" state should probably be re-thought, at least insofar as it applies to pawns which are part of besieging forces.

Indirect fire is one way to harass a player almost with impunity: right now, I don't know how I would deal with being hit by an "incendiary mortar" even every couple of hours. Historically, even a trebuchet could hit a castle twice an hour, a rate which in RW seems like it would grind a player to dust in no time. I would suggest a rate of one shot every two to three hours, or more frequently if the AI is trying to apply pressure in conjunction with an attack.

Any food source the AI can deny the player should be denied the player. Resources lying around outside should be grabbed by the besiegers if possible: not only is this essential to the success of a siege, this behavior would lead to natural sites of conflict and sources of drama as players try to fight off hostiles while also securing food from the outside. Food-bearing plants should all be burned.

Animals present a bit of a problem here, because they are a possible source of food, but aren't really controllable like real animals are. You can't scare away animals in Rimworld by shooting near them, nor can someone simply herd them away. The siege of Jalalabad in 1842 was partly decided by the ability of the British to retrieve some sheep from outside the city, so it's a very real factor. The AI needs some way to deny animal food to the player. Until animals can be scared or herded, I suggest the AI should be able to kill and burn or eat animals if they're too close to a colony.

The same goes for building resources within reach of the AI. Metal lying around should be used for the defenses of the besiegers.

Sieges will have to deal with a very wide variety of player colonies. There are stone-walled forts, open layouts with many buildings outdoors, colonies accessible only via killbox, and colonies entirely dug out of mountains with only a 1-tile wide entrance carved out of rock and completely sealed with walls. It's complicated, but I bet there are ways to structure a repertoire of attacks which don't also result in the AI shooting itself in the foot.

For instance, in a plugged up mountain colony, the enemy has no paths to any colonists and there are no metal roofs over any colonists, so it makes sense that no artillery would be useful. In that case, it seems logical that a besieging force would try starving out the colony by controlling its surroundings and try mining into the colony. I would support mining in such scenarios, although I think it would make a lot more sense and be computationally simpler if the AI tried to mine away player-built walls rather than natural rock walls. For balance reasons, the AI should only be able to mine away slowly, but mine away it should. It would also make sense if they planted explosives every once in a while.

That's all I can think of right now. Can you tell I'm excited about sieges?

[Morrigi]

Interestingly enough, the American M224 60mm mortar can achieve a fire rate of 20rpm+ with a well-trained crew. However, considering that the bandits would likely have to carry all their ammunition on foot (and not be particularly well-trained), it'd be a pretty bad idea to use it all in one barrage. In the interests of game balance, one round every RL 20 seconds to a minute, per mortar would be reasonable during an assault, with mostly HE rounds being fired. Also in the interests of balance, it'd be nearly impossible for small mortar bombs to get into underground areas.

Also, bandits probably shouldn't start showing up with artillery until late game.

However, I think it'd be nice to be able to build a good, concrete-reinforced roof.

[Pulaskimask]

For instance, in a plugged up mountain colony, the enemy has no paths to any colonists and there are no metal roofs over any colonists, so it makes sense that no artillery would be useful.

Artillery could cause cave-ins in such a scenario?

Historically, even a trebuchet could hit a castle twice an hour, a rate which in RW seems like it would grind a player to dust in no time.

I would like it if the trebuchets needed to be loaded up with a pile of rock debris before they could be fired. It would help remove the oddity of infinite ammo and tie into the later artillery which will require missiles. Also this way the rate of fire would be limited by the time it takes to find and haul rock debris to the trebuchets.

[Nasikabatrachus]

I hadn't thought about trebuchets actually being in the game. I don't think Tynan would put them in, but I think that would be a cool thing for a medieval mod.

If artillery is able to cause cave-ins in rooms interior to a mountain, there should be an easier way to see which areas have less overhead rock cover (assuming that more overhead rock = less cave-in chance). The game's mountains aren't flat mesas, but it's not terribly convenient to tell ahead of time what areas have overhead rock, or how much, and which don't, especially at large scales.

I would like to see mortars making holes in constructed roofs. Think about all the slag roofs generate; that could really trash a place (and I mean that in a good way).

[Jones-250]

http://page2rss.com/f96f5907a5c3a7a4664dbb72010bebe4
A few details from the changelog (devlog) regarding this subject:

"7. June
Turrets can now require manning to work. This is the case for artillery.
Sieging raiders will eat and sleep.
Siege AI now properly spends points to create emplacements.
Sieging enemies now fight fires around their emplacements.
Siege AI now properly splits sieging enemies between construction and defense duties.
5. June
Sieging enemies can actually build their fortifications and artillery.
Smarter siege sandbag placement.
Added artillery warmup time and minimum range.
Made mortar graphics.
4. June
Created basic incendiary mortar structure.
Siege AI places mortar blueprints and drops construction supplies."


Looks that sniper tactics will soon bear juicy, sweet fruit.

Harass siege encampment with snipers => ? => Profit!

                     

[ITypedThis]

What I'd really like to see is if the player assaults the raider's encampment before everything is set up, they could get their hands on some fat, juicy loot like tons of artillery rounds and supplies.

[killerx243]

I think it would be cool for tribal sieges to build catapults like this:


But they need to cut down trees and gather rock debris so they can build and fire it.

[absentminded]

 Raiders breaking through your defences are cool and all, and kinda already a thing

But what about a 'passive' siege, where instead of attacking you they wait you out. Build sandbag fortifications around their position and by being there prevent traders from being able to trade with you.
Maybe even have them be able to 'cut' your power remotely or something as well, every day of the siege given them another power, alittle gamey but it'd work.
First day they're just outside building sandbags and making it dangerous to hunt or do outside stuff.
Second day they block off your signals preventing you from trading or calling for help.
Thrid day they EM pulse or some other explanation your power away, hurting you in all kinds of ways
Fourth day they remotely blow your batteries causing fires and havok all over the place
and etc.
So the longer you wait to do anything the worse it gets until eventually, either you all die or they get bored and finally storm you.

Not an attack, but an actual siege forcing you with your inferior numbers to storm their position instead of giving them new ways to attack your position.

[Untrustedlife]

I hadn't thought about trebuchets actually being in the game. I don't think Tynan would put them in, but I think that would be a cool thing for a medieval mod.

If artillery is able to cause cave-ins in rooms interior to a mountain, there should be an easier way to see which areas have less overhead rock cover (assuming that more overhead rock = less cave-in chance). The game's mountains aren't flat mesas, but it's not terribly convenient to tell ahead of time what areas have overhead rock, or how much, and which don't, especially at large scales.

I would like to see mortars making holes in constructed roofs. Think about all the slag roofs generate; that could really trash a place (and I mean that in a good way).

Why wouldn't he? There are various groups of various tech levels, in game and in the lore it fits the game perfectly.. we aren't limited to sci-fi.. a medieval faction could be added for  example and it fits fine.