The Infestation

Started by Captain_Silver, April 05, 2018, 12:02:56 AM

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Tober6fire

Jesus well I guess I better start hunting and killing the bugs like everyone says in this form if I do get a infestation.
I love stories and I hope that everyone try's to contribute in telling their stories as it is interesting and intriguing to see people connect through the tales they create.

giannikampa

I don't get how some here say they poke insects using long range weapons: in my experience a single harm to one of them aggroes all of them in a swarm attack.
In my current game i set a natural cave for the infestation incident pretty far away from my base and half of the map has deadfall traps and ied traps, it is always a 50-50 if i have to hard counter the swarm when it begins or if i just have to kill the last 5-10 insects that make through to my external wide spreaded defences.
And as always.. sorry for my bad english

TheMeInTeam

Quote from: giannikampa on May 08, 2018, 02:11:02 AM
I don't get how some here say they poke insects using long range weapons: in my experience a single harm to one of them aggroes all of them in a swarm attack.
In my current game i set a natural cave for the infestation incident pretty far away from my base and half of the map has deadfall traps and ied traps, it is always a 50-50 if i have to hard counter the swarm when it begins or if i just have to kill the last 5-10 insects that make through to my external wide spreaded defences.

You could poke them to death in the alphas, but now they will chase you so it's more like pulling a train of mobs in an MMORPG.  There's a lot of hitpoint beef in the large numbers though, so you really want stuff like miniguns or other DPS hoses to shred the incoming bugs.  Failing that, forcing them to path over fire (burning sandbags is pretty effective since the fire lasts a while and forces them to slowly traverse them) can output a lot of DPS too.

They are the reason I don't like mountain bases.  When an infestation spawns, at least on extreme difficulty, some of the megascarabs appear *INSTANTLY*.  There is no counterplay to this; the slowdown from melee attacks means that there's a good chance any pawn nearby that infestation is going to die.  Contrast this to drop pod raiders or mechs, where you always get several seconds to move before they land, emerge, and pick a target and it's night and day.  Those will never kill your non-bedridden pawns with zero counterplay.  Infestations can.

Tober6fire

Infection takes on a whole new meaning in this game it's basically like real life bugs once they move in they might never come out.
I love stories and I hope that everyone try's to contribute in telling their stories as it is interesting and intriguing to see people connect through the tales they create.

Injured Muffalo

Quote from: TheMeInTeam on May 11, 2018, 02:13:02 PM
When an infestation spawns, at least on extreme difficulty, some of the megascarabs appear *INSTANTLY*.  There is no counterplay to this; the slowdown from melee attacks means that there's a good chance any pawn nearby that infestation is going to die.  Contrast this to drop pod raiders or mechs, where you always get several seconds to move before they land, emerge, and pick a target and it's night and day.  Those will never kill your non-bedridden pawns with zero counterplay.  Infestations can.

IMO, infestations shouldn't occur in occupied rooms, but of course they do currently.
A muffalo encountered a vimp near a patch of sweet vegetables. A struggle ensued. The muffalo gored the vimp with its horns. The vimp bit the muffalo with its beak. Finally, the vimp was bested, sending large chunks of its flesh in every direction. But the muffalo was injured. It shed a single tear.

Canute

And why do you think they shouldn't ?
I bet you are against Droppod landing of mechanics at your dinning room too ? :-)

PatrykSzczescie

Reading this thread, I think I'll make a new map with caves, make a large tunnel and leave it be for infestation. Then, I'll send my colonists to train shooting, collect jelly and get some meat for kibble.

Injured Muffalo

Quote from: Canute on May 19, 2018, 12:49:09 PM
And why do you think they shouldn't ?
I bet you are against Droppod landing of mechanics at your dinning room too ? :-)

Well, you bet wrong.

They way they work ATM is the bugs and hive appear out of nowhere even if people are walking through the room and using it. Obviously that is not how infestations work. They need a quiet habitat to spread and if people are using the room, that habitat does not exist. People would kill the bugs before an "infestation" event occured.

So I think there should be some rules, like no infestations where there are assigned beds or people present. Something along those lines. They should occur in storerooms and empty caves.
A muffalo encountered a vimp near a patch of sweet vegetables. A struggle ensued. The muffalo gored the vimp with its horns. The vimp bit the muffalo with its beak. Finally, the vimp was bested, sending large chunks of its flesh in every direction. But the muffalo was injured. It shed a single tear.

Snafu_RW

Bugs (infestations) are less likely to spawn in lit areas: light your bedrooms! Dig out a huge steel/rock/WHY deposit elsewhere to give them a better spawn chance 'over there' rather than 'right here'
Try not to build hospital/bedrooms under overmountain (check with the vanilla roof overlay, bottom right buttons)
Or just turn infestations off in devmode.. your choice
Dom 8-)

Shurp

I think of infestations a bit differently.  These superbugs are digging through mountains constantly, looking for new homes.  When they pop into an open area they and the hives they are carrying with them tumble through the hole and land all over.

I would like it if a "collapsed hole" object were created at the same time as the insect spawn.  Actually, just filling a 3x3 space with "collapsed overhead mountain" would do.  And if your pawn was there at the time, sucks to be you :)
If you give an annoying colonist a parka before banishing him to the ice sheet you'll only get a -3 penalty instead of -5.

And don't forget that the pirates chasing a refugee are often better recruits than the refugee is.

Yoshida Keiji

Case scenario:

2 Hives with 7 mega scarabs and a few small ones.

VERSUS

7 characters with good shooting skill,


Answer: Fight.



I really don't see why people can NOT face a simple situation like this. Packing and leaving the map to settle elsewhere will never help you improve your gameplay. Are you willing to restart your base every time an Infestation triggers?

All that was written about temperature tricks are really annoying, I cant believe people go through such hype levels for an Infestation.

I do agree that infestations should have some sort of warning, in my opinion, I would make animal dirt, moisture/water/rain play a factor. It is indeed nonsense when they spawn fully adult grown inside somebody's bedroom, specially if rooms are kept 100% clean.

For me the biggest annoyance I meet these days is when multiple hives spawn in two different locations far apart from each other and the notification letter arrow only shows one of the two sides. I had this game when a hive spawned far away under a mountain that had minerals I already extracted and used the carved space. The arrow pointed there. But also had other hives pop up almost at the opposite side of the map and inside a prison that had 2 captives. I would have appreciated multiple indicators.

The most ridiculous thing about infestations to this day is every harm they get, blame the player always (https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=33613.msg366704#msg366704).

The only tip that nobody mentioned this far is, if you do engage, do wait until they retreat all the way back to their hives, because if you wake them up halfway towards your base, their chasing length will extend like restarting their original spawn point. This of course, can be advantageous if you are good at kitting, as the farther they go, the easier to sneak by their back line and destroy the hives while they are all far away.
This is of course, good for those who build an outer city wall. And bad for killbox players. Killbox players will never truly learn how to fight.

TheMeInTeam

#26
Quote from: Injured Muffalo on May 19, 2018, 11:37:08 AM
Quote from: TheMeInTeam on May 11, 2018, 02:13:02 PM
When an infestation spawns, at least on extreme difficulty, some of the megascarabs appear *INSTANTLY*.  There is no counterplay to this; the slowdown from melee attacks means that there's a good chance any pawn nearby that infestation is going to die.  Contrast this to drop pod raiders or mechs, where you always get several seconds to move before they land, emerge, and pick a target and it's night and day.  Those will never kill your non-bedridden pawns with zero counterplay.  Infestations can.

IMO, infestations shouldn't occur in occupied rooms, but of course they do currently.

I'm not even against that necessarily.  They literally just need the same amount of time to react that drop pod raids get, and you're not guaranteed to lose someone when they happen on top of someone (unless said colonist is incapped, but this is not a problem unique to infestation).

QuoteThe only tip that nobody mentioned this far is, if you do engage, do wait until they retreat all the way back to their hives, because if you wake them up halfway towards your base, their chasing length will extend like restarting their original spawn point. This of course, can be advantageous if you are good at kitting, as the farther they go, the easier to sneak by their back line and destroy the hives while they are all far away.
This is of course, good for those who build an outer city wall. And bad for killbox players.

How is this bad for killbox players?  If the infestation is distant from the base they can pop bugs with an AR until they are committed to the killbox then duck through a side door and suck the entirety of the infestation into the killbox.  The bugs can't even shoot, so as long as you have good DPS output it's open season on insect meat --> go kill hives freely.

I often kite bugs to death on external infestations killbox or not, once they're gone the hives are easy targets.

I've even explored the viability of farming bugs on tribal ice sheet starts, but alas it's not that useful.  It's not trivial to keep temperatures high enough (sometimes you can pull it off by enclosing a vent, you don't want to use limited wood pre-electricity on this), but this biggest issue is getting them to happen often enough to provide survivable food rate.  Compared to humanlike raiders + cannibal infestations don't roll frequently enough for that to sustain a decent number of people, especially in the crucial early quadrums.

Shurp

I just wanted to second TheMeInTeam; killboxes work fine against bugs.  Especially if you have turrets in them.  But even without it's not hard to duck inside when the bugs get too close.

The only hard part about killboxing bugs is if the hive is a long way from the base; the bugs will turn around and go home rather than attack.  I suppose the solution there is to build a small bunker in between for your pawns to attack from.
If you give an annoying colonist a parka before banishing him to the ice sheet you'll only get a -3 penalty instead of -5.

And don't forget that the pirates chasing a refugee are often better recruits than the refugee is.

TheMeInTeam

Quote from: Shurp on May 21, 2018, 05:21:48 PM
I just wanted to second TheMeInTeam; killboxes work fine against bugs.  Especially if you have turrets in them.  But even without it's not hard to duck inside when the bugs get too close.

The only hard part about killboxing bugs is if the hive is a long way from the base; the bugs will turn around and go home rather than attack.  I suppose the solution there is to build a small bunker in between for your pawns to attack from.

You can open/shut door juke them similar to thrumbos:



Notice the number of times this thing's been hit.  It's never actually attacked the doors.

sadpickle

My main beef is similar to Yoshidas: when they spawn you can get more than one group (2, perhaps 3) in wildly different locations and it is easy to overlook the other locations when the notification arrow points to only one. However, I am confident that this will be addressed.