[Feedback] Alpha 4 and the woes for my way to play...

[Col_Jessep]

First things first: This is no real criticism but just an observation on how the balance has changed in my opinion.

In Alpha 2/3 I always build my colonies without any turrets. My defense relied 100% on my armed colonist and well prepared killboxes. Here is an example:

<-clicky for large pic

The advantages in my opinion are were:
It works reliably even during solar flares, it's expandable, it protects my colonist rather well, M24 snipers don't get a range advantage, maintenance is cheap, after building a cheap starting version with simple doors it can be easily upgraded for faster access, the AI doesn't send crazy amounts of enemies and the amount of copses are manageable.

Another trick was that I avoided to research and build things that (I suspect) increased the number of enemies the AI sends considerably. A lot of my late game colonies had only stone walls and carpets researched. I only started trading after my defenses were finished, did not collect any silver or stockpile metal either to that point. It's probably a very unusual approach but it worked well for me.


As of Alpha 4 my system doesn't seem to work anymore. I don't get enough colonist and decent weapons to man my defense. My team of 3-4 colonists armed with pistols doesn't stand a fighting chance against the 8 raider with Uzis, charge rifles and even miniguns. I've tried to build a couple of colonies since Alpha 4 but my old strategy seems to fail around day 30 when the first large group of enemies appear. I can probably get away with it if I optimize my playstyle a bit, get a lucky roll or save scum. But it will be a lot tougher than it was.

So instead I tried adding turrets back into my defense. It works but it REALLY bugs me. Until now I had a choice if I want to play Tower Defense or if I rely entirely on my colonists but now this choice is so much in favor of turrets that there basically is no decision any more.

I have played Cassandra Classic and Randy, but only a couple of games since RL stuff is keeping me occupied. Maybe you are interested in some quick feedback anyway, Tynan.

[salt1219]

I found that turrets stopped working for me and I spend way more time managing mental breaks than I did before.

I played alpha 1 a lot, then stopped till alpha 4 came out.  (I like seeing big changes)  now that im playing again, I feel the difficulty spiked.  Also what happened to explosive charges I liked those.

[Pulaskimask]

Well in alpha 3 the amount of units sent to attack you was determined by your military strength, so not having any turrets but having very well armed colonists was sort of an exploit where you appeared weaker than you were so the game sent smaller raids against you. Now the game attacks you based off the wealth of your colony, so you do need both turrets and colonists to adequately defend. I do agree that the game is too turret focused, and there has been discussion about how to make it less turret focused(adding seige, smarter AI behavior, etc). I'd love to hear any ideas that people have for expanding the combat roles of the colonists and making them more useful and interesting in a fight.

[Untrustedlife]

Well in alpha 3 the amount of units sent to attack you was determined by your military strength, so not having any turrets but having very well armed colonists was sort of an exploit where you appeared weaker than you were so the game sent smaller raids against you. Now the game attacks you based off the wealth of your colony, so you do need both turrets and colonists to adequately defend. I do agree that the game is too turret focused, and there has been discussion about how to make it less turret focused(adding seige, smarter AI behavior, etc). I'd love to hear any ideas that people have for expanding the combat roles of the colonists and making them more useful and interesting in a fight.

Bam

[Col_Jessep]

The reason I posted this threat was to see if we could think up a slightly changed balance that would still make it viable to play without turrets or a minimal amount. Tynan was not too happy about the turret spam we had in the previous versions if I understand his posts correctly.

Some things that might help:
• a more steady increase of raid sizes with better chance to incapacitate early game
• not equipping raiders with very powerful or long range weapons early (M24, minigun, R4)
• changing the colonist trait "incapable of violence" to a 0/0 skill in ranged/melee for 3 original colonists
• "normalizing" the chance to incapacitate and recruit (it's very RNG dependant atm imo)

[Untrustedlife]

I found that turrets stopped working for me and I spend way more time managing mental breaks than I did before.

I played alpha 1 a lot, then stopped till alpha 4 came out.  (I like seeing big changes)  now that im playing again, I feel the difficulty spiked.  Also what happened to explosive charges I liked those.

The explosive charges were completely op if you knew how to use them right, so they were taken out for balance reasons.

The game definitely seems more challenging now, but this is a good thing, because in alphas 1-2 you could VERY easily , kill raider armies, just by using blasting charges and a turret killbox, these are FAR less effective now. and you cannot exploit the game as easily. (you can still create a killbox now though if you know how to do it right (which is why sieges are coming next))