Unstable build feedback thread

[DubskiDude]

I'm interested in how turrets are these days, in terms of effectiveness, accessibility, usefulness, cost/benefit. Note they were made cheaper not long ago. I haven't seen much mass turret use and I'd have expected to see more.

Playing on a jungle map, RR Rough, 325k colony wealth.

Here's a screencap of my base. I've found that tidy square bases are easiest to work with. A double-wide steel wall is necessary to keep out baddies, and the best way to use my shooter pawns is to make a "pillbox" around each entrance to the colony. I guard these entrances with turrets - 23 autocannons, 19 steel mini-turrets, and one sniper turret in total. Designing a successful defense is pretty difficult, but that may be a consequence of my base design.

Anywho, to save space I clump my autocannons together in groups of three so they aren't shooting each other, and I surround them with sandbags for protection. It sucks because if one explodes, they all explode, but spacing them out is too much of a hassle and might risk more friendly fire. I've also been forced to switch up my turret placement because unreasonable amounts of bugs attack my base often (Overhead Mountain + Infestations yaaaaaaaaaaaaay) and I find that bugs and even Scythers tend to just bumrush my turret nest and vandalize the shit out of my autocannons since they can't fire back. The minimum firing distance is REALLY inconvenient. To (slightly) fix this, I place mini turrets just outside of the autocannons' minimum range so that enemies will take time destroying them, but will still be in firing range of both mini turrets and autocannons. I don't use sniper turrets because I feel that autocannons do the job better on average, and they're slightly less expensive.

I just now noticed that the steel cost for autocannons + snipers dropped since the last time I checked. Now during my jungle playthrough I've found that I have so much steel and uranium that it's actually too much for my storage building lol. Kinda wish steel/wood/blocks/etc could stack to 100 per cell... anywho, judging from my experience, if autocannons and sniper turrets had the minimum range removed or reduced, then I think it would be reasonable to up the steel cost for them. The uranium cost for sniper turrets I'm neutral on - not sure if it should go up, down, or stay the same.

Overall my turret nests are weak to triple rocket/doomsday launchers and the occasional event where they're Zerg-rushed by insects who have overwhelmed the mini turret "decoys". But otherwise they dish out a lot of damage and really help with huge raids.

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[fritzgryphon]

Adaptation on downed pawn

Tried to exploit this.

I held a 'fight club' and knocked out 6 of my 10 pawns.  The fun points dropped from 102 to 61 (!).    However, an eye and a leg was lost.  In another fight, a colonist was killed. 

Then I chose my two weakest melee pawns and had them fight, over and over again.  After the first downing, the same pawn was  knocked out again as soon as they could walk, repeated twice a day.  After 10-15 downings the fun points were halved.  I guess you could continue this forever, if you don't mind that the pawn gets disfigured and loses fingers.

Where the cheese could really take off is if you had a non-violent wimp in your colony (did not test).  The pawn could be downed repeatedly with little risk of injury.  Or, if you have a frail, armless, or paralyzed pawn, you could beat them up, too.  Or recruit prisoners for no other reason than to confine to a room and down repeatedly.

It's unlikely anyone would do this, especially if they can't see the adaptation graph, but it is technically possible to reduce or stall adaptation this way.  Maybe a downed pawn should have to suffer at least one non-colonist inflicted injury to count towards adaptation (or be berserk or social fighting).

Tried heatstroke downing too; has no effect.

[mcduff]

Is it really worth trying to put a fix in place for every weird exploit? If you're metagaming so much that you're beating up your own pawns, I say fair play to you. I don't think many people are going to play the game like that even if they know about it.

[Greep]

Actually, if it doesn't take too much work, switching the downed adaptation to permanent injury adaptation would help out legit players and simultaneously get rid of the exploit.  My 6 guys with eyes shot out and prosthetic arms aren't too great but they weren't even downed 

[Truman]

Well, I pretty much just had my butt handed to me.

• Crashlander, Cassandra/Rough, Temperate Forest (30/60) created in 1.0.1970
• Ended on 4 Septober, 5501. Final wealth: 58,857. Deaths: 2. Final population: 11 (mostly bedridden and starving)
• 13 Raids total, although only six raid dots show up on the graphs. 13 major threats.
  
• The largest raid was two groups of pirates in a coordinated assault from the east and west. I believe there were 15 total pirates vs my colony of 9 (one incapable of violence). I had two turrets on each side but they were little more than distractions and three exploded in the ensuing combat.
• Recruitment chance is much better than in .1968, but overcoming the initial resistance is painful. I understand and agree with the need to introduce a natural "hysteresis" period between the attacking enemy and joining ally states, but in the early game where recruiting skills are probably low and supplies and work effort more precious the cost of recruiting is high.
  
• In the final three game weeks I was hit with a heat wave, multiple raids, malaria (six colonists), malaria again (four more colonists), muscle parasites (four colonists, overlapping with the malaria victims), a psychic drone ship (ouch!), and finally toxic fallout which pretty much left my remaining colonists dying of starvation.

I realize that the game is in a "shake it 'til you break it" mode, but it feels to me as if too many changes are occurring simultaneously with unpredictable interactions, followed by reactionary adjustments. I am only a mediocre player, but I have been playing since A16 and I haven't felt so out of control in a long time. The graph may show 95 "fun points", but I don't concur!

[attachment deleted due to age]

[Broken Reality]

I really love the idea of the naked and alone start; HOWEVER, my current attempts (Cass/Rough) have been completely unsuccessful. The very first raid brings a pawn that wins every time. I've tried stressing melee, I've tried stressing short bow. Each time I lose the slugfest.

I'm not sure what my suggested solution would be...Increase the chances for a wanderer or an escape pod? That doesn't seem quite right. The problem really seems to be in the effectiveness of the opponent. Or perhaps the lack of effectiveness in my one pawn.

I've tried a tribal start a few times now, as well, also Cass/Rough. Range weapons seem to have lost effectiveness, or perhaps, guns have become a bit more effective compared to lesser weapons. I'll be trying more tribal starts. Perhaps I'm doing something I shouldn't. I'm less concerned here. I probably did something silly.

Definitely put some think time into the naked and alone start, though. I want that to be awesome, but if it is always a First Raid and Done scenario, then why bother?

It's supposed to be really difficult. Also you should pretty much always win a 1v1 fight if you have a bow and a building to use with doors to hide in. This is something you are doing wrong.

One thing again from my current cass, rough, temp forest run is that once breaking resistance recruitment is so far guaranteed on the next chat. I've also just had the first 100% difficult recruit prisoner that i can remember who BTW has a resistance of 50 (I'm going to recruit him anyway just because he is a good shot and a janitor is always useful, though the time investment is probably not worth it)

[Sirinox]

Adaptation on downed pawn

Tried to exploit this.

I held a 'fight club' and knocked out 6 of my 10 pawns.  The fun points dropped from 102 to 61 (!).    However, an eye and a leg was lost.  In another fight, a colonist was killed. 

Then I chose my two weakest melee pawns and had them fight, over and over again.  After the first downing, the same pawn was  knocked out again as soon as they could walk, repeated twice a day.  After 10-15 downings the fun points were halved.  I guess you could continue this forever, if you don't mind that the pawn gets disfigured and loses fingers.

Where the cheese could really take off is if you had a non-violent wimp in your colony (did not test).  The pawn could be downed repeatedly with little risk of injury.  Or, if you have a frail, armless, or paralyzed pawn, you could beat them up, too.  Or recruit prisoners for no other reason than to confine to a room and down repeatedly.

It's unlikely anyone would do this, especially if they can't see the adaptation graph, but it is technically possible to reduce or stall adaptation this way.  Maybe a downed pawn should have to suffer at least one non-colonist inflicted injury to count towards adaptation (or be berserk or social fighting).

Tried heatstroke downing too; has no effect.

Nice, now we can roleplay storyteller pleasing sacrifices that indeed have effect.

[zizard]

I'm interested in how turrets are these days, in terms of effectiveness, accessibility, usefulness, cost/benefit. Note they were made cheaper not long ago. I haven't seen much mass turret use and I'd have expected to see more.

The advanced turrets are expensive, fragile (low HP/cost, and large body size), and dangerous for friendly fire. They are only good in a tightly controlled situation (i.e. k i l l b o x), which is how I've been using them in my plays. Even then I find they are prone to explode, wasting hundreds of steel, and everything around, or FF oneshot torso your colonists / animals.

[syterth]

It's supposed to be really difficult. Also you should pretty much always win a 1v1 fight if you have a bow and a building to use with doors to hide in. This is something you are doing wrong.

I totally understand that it's supposed to be hard; however, diving in and out of doors is not intuitive. So I would argue that is not something to rely on. I really cannot support that idea as the sole way to survive naked and alone.

I'll certainly give it a shot, though! XD

[Greep]

I'm interested in how turrets are these days, in terms of effectiveness, accessibility, usefulness, cost/benefit. Note they were made cheaper not long ago. I haven't seen much mass turret use and I'd have expected to see more.

The advanced turrets are expensive, fragile (low HP/cost, and large body size), and dangerous for friendly fire. They are only good in a tightly controlled situation (i.e. k i l l b o x), which is how I've been using them in my plays. Even then I find they are prone to explode, wasting hundreds of steel, and everything around, or FF oneshot torso your colonists / animals.

yeah if you go the "free range turrets" route you have to get used to some non-stop hold fire micro to stop colonist deaths

[Broken Reality]

I totally understand that it's supposed to be hard; however, diving in and out of doors is not intuitive. So I would argue that is not something to rely on. I really cannot support that idea as the sole way to survive naked and alone.

I'll certainly give it a shot, though! XD

People have done naked brutality runs with pacifists so winning a 1v1 should be possible with a bow. It's the hardest start and one you need to know alot about the game to do well on, as well as getting somewhat lucky or at least not getting alot of bad luck.

[Razzoriel]

On the devilstrand balancing.

Isn't the concept of Devilstrand to be slightly superior than Synthread, but difficult to maintain a steady production and highly energy-demanding because you need half a year to harvest? If that is the case, Devilstrand was perfect and there was no need to change it. Now, if there is a need to buff leathers, then its an entire different conversation.

IMO the order of fabrics was always: Cloth -> Wool -> various furs/leathers -> rare animals' wool/leather (thrumbo, megatheriums) ->  Synthread -> Devilstrand -> Hyperweave.

If it needs to be kept that way, pre-change was quite how it should be. If it doesn't, then Devilstrand being debuffed to Synthread-like status is quite a huge and unnecessary nerf. That is, if you, Tynan, has any plans on making Hyperweave craftable, then it makes sense, kinda.

[Greep]

I feel like devilstrand balancing is part of a wider issue with fabrics just generally being too weak in 1.0.    Low armor levels just don't do much damage mitigation.  Could maybe just be solved with some postprocessing on the lower end (< 100 armor) since tynan loves dem curves 

Has anyone actually been using fabrics in battle with success?  I've even been skipping plate in my most recent game, as my experience with it has been pretty iffy unless you embark specifically with a high level crafter.

[jchavezriva]

As i have spammed said a lot of times in this thread, centipedes with the new armor system are way too OP.

So i was thinking, what if you let melee pawns go for the weak parts when the centipedes are stunned? Right now, to manage to stun a mechanoid is not very rewarding given how the pawns administrate their valuable 20 seconds. They keep hitting parts that will never break, like the body's rings. When the centipedes are stunned, shouldnt the hit chance for the head increase dramatically? Since the centipedes will have a hard time avoiding hits...

[zizard]

Now here's a turret that I would actually use free range:

Body size 1 or below, good HP, medium range, high accuracy, maybe 2-3 round burst with lowish damage per shot and dps. When an enemy gets into melee range, it lowers itself underground, gains high damage reduction and (if it doesn't mess up the AI too much, which it might, would need experiment, otherwise the damage reduction should still let you attempt to bail it out) is no longer a raid target (could still be destroyed coincidentally by AOE). The turret must be re-armed to reactivate it. High accuracy and low damage per shot mitigates FF risk, and self-protection makes it less of a liability. This would be a nice supporting / stalling turret.