Trap costs in 0.19

[giltirn]

Experienced players simply won't use traps knowing that it will screw them over in the long-term. A sad eulogy to a formerly viable game strategy.

You seem to say that because they aren't a total solution, nobody ever has any reason to use them ever. It's not a valid inference.

In reality it's in between, as it should be: Useful sometimes, less useful other times, based on circumstances and strategy. Not a total solution; not totally useless. I look forward to seeing how the metagame works out as players get experience with them.

As 5H noted, I suspect they're still OP if used optimally, but so many RW strategies are.

I have something like 350 hours in Rimworld and so would consider myself an experienced player. The attraction of traps is that they use renewable resource, unlike any other defense in the game. If your colony relies upon IEDs, turrets and mortars you will quickly reach a point where you are entirely dependent upon external sources of steel and components. Unfortunately there are no reliable sources of these resources; bulk goods traders are few and far between, leaving mining colonies or settlement trading as your only real options. Both of these options come with a number of severe downsides including the need to maintain a significant number of pack animals, lots of micromanagement either in the generation of trade goods or in controlling your miners, plus extended periods when your base is heavily undermanned and vulnerable.

Edit: As to the metagame it seems obvious to me that it will inevitably lead to two groups of people: those who use traps only as last-ditch defenses behind their front lines, in which case they will rarely ever see action, or those like myself who will end up shackled to the trap economy.

[giltirn]

You can build traps out of literally any material. If you're short on wood, you can use other materials to substitute while waiting for the trees to grow back.

Or you know, grow your own trees? Trade? Caravan for resources? There's tons of ways to get materials in this game. In my colony I've used wood traps early game and switched to steel later on.

Have you tried growing trees in 0.19? I have. On my boreal forest I set out a tree farm in year one when wood became an issue. Unfortunately because of the short growing period, the very long planting time (a lovely 0.19 mega-nerf) and the fact that you can only plant in growing season meant that I could only seed the field towards the end of the growing period in year 2. I'm on year 4 now and the trees still have not reached a harvestable state. Put it this way: even the best tree generates 1.15 wood per day of its growing season. For a mild-ish map with say 25 days of growing period, that is 29 wood per year per tree. If I need 300 wood every, say, 7 days, that means 43 wood per day or 2600 wood per year. Thus I would need to be planting and maintaining something like 100 trees or more!

[Firestonezz]

You can build traps out of literally any material. If you're short on wood, you can use other materials to substitute while waiting for the trees to grow back.

Or you know, grow your own trees? Trade? Caravan for resources? There's tons of ways to get materials in this game. In my colony I've used wood traps early game and switched to steel later on.

Have you tried growing trees in 0.19? I have. On my boreal forest I set out a tree farm in year one when wood became an issue. Unfortunately because of the short growing period, the very long planting time (a lovely 0.19 mega-nerf) and the fact that you can only plant in growing season meant that I could only seed the field towards the end of the growing period in year 2. I'm on year 4 now and the trees still have not reached a harvestable state. Put it this way: even the best tree generates 1.15 wood per day of its growing season. For a mild-ish map with say 25 days of growing period, that is 29 wood per year per tree. If I need 300 wood every, say, 7 days, that means 43 wood per day or 2600 wood per year. Thus I would need to be planting and maintaining something like 100 trees or more!

Don't rely on a single source then; use trading, caravans, naturally-growing trees, and tree farms together.

Also, this doesn't change the fact that you can use other materials to build traps when wood resources get low. I substituted in stone/steel traps for my colony when I was running low on wood until I was able to stock up again by waiting for tree growth, caravaning to farm other tiles, and calling in traders to buy wood.

[D-Wiz]

For what it's worth, I've been finding traps to be in a pretty good spot right now. Early/early-mid game, some well placed traps have either entirely defeated or greatly thinned out raids for me, so at that point they're more than worth the investment. Then as I research turrets, get better weapons and armor, etc. I am able to transition to other defense strategies and use traps more sparingly at certain strategic points, so that the total resource investment into traps never really increases throughout the game, but they still remain useful. I guess, as Tynan said, it really comes down to how you are trying/expecting to use them. Overall, though, I think traps are very useful and not OP (or I'm just not smart enough to use them in way that they're OP). So it seems like they're at least somewhere around the balance sweet spot.

[giltirn]

You can build traps out of literally any material. If you're short on wood, you can use other materials to substitute while waiting for the trees to grow back.

Or you know, grow your own trees? Trade? Caravan for resources? There's tons of ways to get materials in this game. In my colony I've used wood traps early game and switched to steel later on.

Have you tried growing trees in 0.19? I have. On my boreal forest I set out a tree farm in year one when wood became an issue. Unfortunately because of the short growing period, the very long planting time (a lovely 0.19 mega-nerf) and the fact that you can only plant in growing season meant that I could only seed the field towards the end of the growing period in year 2. I'm on year 4 now and the trees still have not reached a harvestable state. Put it this way: even the best tree generates 1.15 wood per day of its growing season. For a mild-ish map with say 25 days of growing period, that is 29 wood per year per tree. If I need 300 wood every, say, 7 days, that means 43 wood per day or 2600 wood per year. Thus I would need to be planting and maintaining something like 100 trees or more!

Don't rely on a single source then; use trading, caravans, naturally-growing trees, and tree farms together.

Also, this doesn't change the fact that you can use other materials to build traps when wood resources get low. I substituted in stone/steel traps for my colony when I was running low on wood until I was able to stock up again by waiting for tree growth, caravaning to farm other tiles, and calling in traders to buy wood.

Your strategy remains only practical for very small scale trap use. I doubt even the most caravan-happy player could sustain a loss of 300 of any combination of wood, steel or stone blocks every few days in perpetuity. The number is just too large. 300 steel is just over 8.5 tiles of steel. 300 stone blocks is 15 stone chunks. 300 wood is 10 trees. What I've been trying to communicate this whole thread is that the trap cost is just too high for sustainable use at what I consider a reasonable level of losing 10 traps per attack. Even losing 3 traps per fight the number is too high.

In contrast a turret needs rearming with 40 steel every 120 shots, i.e. the cost of 1.3 traps to do 1320 cumulative damage (11 damage per shot), something like 10x or 20x more damage per unit resource. If traps are given such a nerf then IMO turrets should also be nerfed as well!

[mindlar]

The defense changes in .19 make it so the trap corridor of death strategy no longer works. For me they've been working fine as part of a layer of defenses. 300 wood by the time you're getting raids that have 10 traps triggered shouldn't be too expensive, that's approximately the cost of setting up a new bedroom for a pawn. For me the cost is approximately 2 pawn days of work to chop trees and reinstall the traps. Obviously this is biome dependent as to how available the resources are.

A direct comparison to turrets seems like an apples to oranges comparison. Turrets have a larger up front cost to build, maintenance issues (power/batteries/breakdowns/etc.), and can catastrophically explode if things go wrong possibly including other turrets if placed too close together.

[giltirn]

The defense changes in .19 make it so the trap corridor of death strategy no longer works. For me they've been working fine as part of a layer of defenses. 300 wood by the time you're getting raids that have 10 traps triggered shouldn't be too expensive, that's approximately the cost of setting up a new bedroom for a pawn. For me the cost is approximately 2 pawn days of work to chop trees and reinstall the traps. Obviously this is biome dependent as to how available the resources are.

A direct comparison to turrets seems like an apples to oranges comparison. Turrets have a larger up front cost to build, maintenance issues (power/batteries/breakdowns/etc.), and can catastrophically explode if things go wrong possibly including other turrets if placed too close together.

Well you don't need to set up a new bedroom every 5 days; comparing the ongoing cost of traps to the one-off cost of furniture really is an apples to oranges comparison. OTOH it makes perfect sense to compare two components of the varied defense strategy that Tynan wishes us to adopt. A turret costs 100 steel + 3 components (which can be crafted for a further 36 steel), i.e. the cost of 4.5 steel traps. Maybe you lose one turret every couple of raids so lets say your entire killbox's worth of turrets costs only say 2 traps worth of resources as an ongoing cost. And unlike traps this cost is reduced if you have more turrets!

[bbqftw]

Small scale is how this game is intended to be played as raid point scaling has a component which is effectively represented by wealth^2.

It's not just traps, practically every fair defense loses effectiveness as enemy scaling increases. Exceptions being mortars, doom/trips and <secret degenerate killbox strat which will not be described here>

[Goldenpotatoes]

Small scale is how this game is intended to be played as raid point scaling has a component which is effectively represented by wealth^2.

It's not just traps, practically every fair defense loses effectiveness as enemy scaling increases. Exceptions being mortars, doom/trips and <secret degenerate killbox strat which will not be described here>

Tynan is gonna throw a fit if he sees that statement about point scaling, considering he's already said more than once that more than just wealth goes into strength factor for events and raids.

The point about strategies eventually losing effectiveness with scaling isn't necessarily wrong though, but that's because this game isn't designed around infinite playtime on a single save. You're expected to either die or leave the planet currently, how you die depends on how beefy your hardware is(not as big as an issue since 1.9 actually has a cap to how high the point scaling can be). Playing for those 10+ ingame years is doable, but the game's progression loop and content during that loop really isn't built for playthroughs that long and it really shows after the 3-4th year.

I personally had no issues with trap costs in my 1.9 playthrough, but I enjoy mountainous/large hill biomes because they're ore-rich and easy access to stone. Obviously this is going to change depending on the biome you start in, for better or worse.

[Boboid]

Your strategy remains only practical for very small scale trap use. I doubt even the most caravan-happy player could sustain a loss of 300 of any combination of wood, steel or stone blocks every few days in perpetuity.

It's frankly just not that hard to request a constant supply of caravans from allied factions. Iirc it's a 4 day cooldown per faction so you can get a Bulk Goods caravan every 2 days. They have ~300 steel 100% of the time.
If you make a concerted effort you can trivially afford the cost of the steel and the subsequent gifts required to keep the faction relations high.

As for wood? Well it's essentially infinite in half the game's biomes.
As for stone? Have you actually used a deep drill on a location with no or exhausted resources? If you want stone chunks.. you can have as many as your mining skill allows.. And it's plenty!

What I've been trying to communicate this whole thread is that the trap cost is just too high for sustainable use at what I consider a reasonable level of losing 10 traps per attack. Even losing 3 traps per fight the number is too high.

Sorry but.. it's quite manageable. There's really no two ways about it.

In contrast a turret needs rearming with 40 steel every 120 shots, i.e. the cost of 1.3 traps to do 1320 cumulative damage (11 damage per shot), something like 10x or 20x more damage per unit resource. If traps are given such a nerf then IMO turrets should also be nerfed as well!

The turret comparison is.. pretty freaking invalid for a variety of reasons. The way you're approaching this topic is pretty bonkers to be honest.

I mean did you write that with the intention of nobody thinking about what you'd said for a quarter of a second? The accuracy alone of turrets alone makes the direct damage potential comparison completely invalid.
Turrets can be destroyed by attackers without ever interacting with them.
They have a constant power drain.
Turrets can't be made out of renewable, cheap resources.

It's not just an apples-to-oranges comparison, it's apples to coyotes at this point. There are so many differences in their basic design and use.
Moreover every possibly defensive tool shouldn't be expected to be equally powerful.
Using that logic SANDBAGS should be as powerful as IEDs or turrets.

---
I get the impression that your main concern (that traps -in your mind- aren't viable in whatever your idea of long term is ) is derived from you not actually attempting much of what you're complaining about.
You can easily play for 10+ years and make good use of traps throughout on most difficulties in most biomes.
Their effectiveness will vary but.. they're quite viable.

[Lowkey1987]

Hi everyone, hope your day is sunny

I had used traps more and more and like them more in compareson to the old traps. They have benefits to IDEs because they only harm one target and can be used near your defence. And the costs are okay, which is my playing experience.

If they would cost less i would only spawn them earlier.

[giltirn]

It's frankly just not that hard to request a constant supply of caravans from allied factions. Iirc it's a 4 day cooldown per faction so you can get a Bulk Goods caravan every 2 days. They have ~300 steel 100% of the time.
If you make a concerted effort you can trivially afford the cost of the steel and the subsequent gifts required to keep the faction relations high.

That's a good point, I forgot about requesting caravans. This certainly makes the acquisition of large amounts of steel or wood much easier provided you keep up with trade good production.

As for wood? Well it's essentially infinite in half the game's biomes.

Did you not see the part where I completely emptied a large map of all harvestable wood in the first year? It's not amount, it's rate. Steel is also infinite because it drops from the sky in the form of cargo pods and meteors, but the rate is too low for it to be a practical long-term solution for steel issues.

As for stone? Have you actually used a deep drill on a location with no or exhausted resources? If you want stone chunks.. you can have as many as your mining skill allows.. And it's plenty!

I haven't. Let me ask; how many chunks can a decent miner expect to extract per day?

The turret comparison is.. pretty freaking invalid for a variety of reasons. The way you're approaching this topic is pretty bonkers to be honest.

I mean did you write that with the intention of nobody thinking about what you'd said for a quarter of a second? The accuracy alone of turrets alone makes the direct damage potential comparison completely invalid.
Turrets can be destroyed by attackers without ever interacting with them.
They have a constant power drain.
Turrets can't be made out of renewable, cheap resources.

It's not just an apples-to-oranges comparison, it's apples to coyotes at this point. There are so many differences in their basic design and use.
Moreover every possibly defensive tool shouldn't be expected to be equally powerful.

Using that logic SANDBAGS should be as powerful as IEDs or turrets.

Here you lose me completely. Sandbags are not defensive weapons, they are cover. The defensive weapons are mortars, ieds, turrets and traps. All of these things have an amount of damage to enemy forces that they might be expected to do over their lifetime, and an associated resource cost. I pointed out that there's an order of magnitude of difference in damage/resource between turrets and traps to the point where only a particularly stubborn person would bother using them once turrets become available. Plus turrets are area-effect weapons whose potential scales with the number of turrets and whose costs decrease proportionately (you lose less turrets if you have more). Most of the other 'costs' of turrets are easily manageable. Constant power drain? Build a switch for God's sake! Non-renewable resources? You just spent this entire thread telling me how trivial it is to get enough steel to build the Golden Gate Bridge every other day. And if you are losing turrets to attackers outside of the turret range you really need to work on your turret placement - a couple of walls carefully placed and this will never happen.

I get the impression that your main concern (that traps -in your mind- aren't viable in whatever your idea of long term is ) is derived from you not actually attempting much of what you're complaining about.
You can easily play for 10+ years and make good use of traps throughout on most difficulties in most biomes.
Their effectiveness will vary but.. they're quite viable.

As I have pointed out several times, these concerns are based around an ongoing game that I have been playing now for a few weeks (currently ~4 years in). In this game I had serious serious wood issues *on a forest biome* even with what I consider modest trap usage. I admit it has been better since tree spawn rates were buffed, but it is clear this strategy will be ineffective on a desert, plains or tundra biome. Unfortunately I'm going to have to transition to more powerful traps as these days it takes 3 or 4 traps to bring down the heavily armored raiders that are hitting me. I intend to look further into deep drilling as I am down to the dregs on stone chunks on my map already.

------------------

To elaborate on another aspect of what bothers me about the trap change is how one of the goals of 0.19 was balancing to prevent the overwhelming use of killboxes. But when it came down to it, turrets were only given a relatively mild nerf whereas door-popping and traps were nerfed into the ground.

Killboxes are boring! So so boring. Build a few walls, drop down a bunch of turrets, go to sleep. And now we have even more powerful guns to further trivialize the experience. Autocannons for making mincemeat of mechanoids and long-range uranium-powered sniper turrets for ripping holes in their lines from the other side of the map!

Door popping was fun because it requires careful control and placement of travel and exit routes. Traps were fun because they had a high upfront resource cost which encouraged careful placement and funneling. These tools require forethought and preparation. Now doors take forever to close, drastically reducing the effectiveness of door techniques, and traps are changed into a mindless spam fest but with the wonderful addition of becoming more expensive the more effective they are! I don't even bother to think about where I put traps now, just dump a bunch down and forget about them until I see that once again I am low on logs and my map is as bare as a baby's backside.

[zizard]

Note also open doors no longer have cover and enemies can follow you through them. The videos posted by East had an overall negative result.

[JimBeam]

i think the new trap systems allows for interesting situational plays

the building time makes it possible (for skilled builders) to set up the traps near the enemy, luring them in, retreating and killing off the slowed down meele fighters

if they prepare before the attack thats easy to set up

if they attack immediately  and are further away its possible near the base

this allows very interesting gameplays early and mid-game by using the map

[giltirn]

i think the new trap systems allows for interesting situational plays

the building time makes it possible (for skilled builders) to set up the traps near the enemy, luring them in, retreating and killing off the slowed down meele fighters

if they prepare before the attack thats easy to set up

if they attack immediately  and are further away its possible near the base

this allows very interesting gameplays early and mid-game by using the map

You can actually reinstall traps, so just build them in your base and move them into the line of attack when you need 'em.