'Outside' colony vs 'Mountain' colony

[HatesYourFace]

Don't feed the troll, no one actually takes the way other people play their own single player games so personally. He's just being argumentative/insulting for the sake of it. Non-constructive posts should just be ignored.

[Clayton]

Talking about the game = being a troll? Flawless logic lol.

But, I digress. I was just voicing my opinion; it's not like my opinion really changes anything.

[Goo Poni]

The only problem with playing in the open is that unless you gun it straight towards building a ship at the neglect of virtually everything else, you will garner so much "wealth" in colonists, weapons from raids, silver and resources in general that the game will think it perfectly fair to send raids that outnumber you 2-4 to 1. And you can go as far as to give your colonists the best armour you can get, power armour, M24s and edit their shooting skills to 20, it won't matter, they will die, there are too many guns firing back at you. And it only takes one solid hit to a leg to incapacitate a colonist. Raiders are disposable, colonists are not. Fighting in an open field, hiding behind rock chunks in against such odds will see your colony get rekt. The raiders simply achieve critical mass. If you build into a mountain and don't seal up the base with some sort of exploitative defense against the outside world, raiders will roll through it just as hard. If no such defense is used, the only advantage a mountain base has is that it's sheltered from mortars and can more or less ignore them entirely. With such a defense, still, the only advantage is that a mountain base is sheltered from mortars. Stray mortars might hit turrets and send an entire killbox up in smoke if you're not careful.


Ultimately, this discussion is moot. It's a single player game. My way differs from your way differs from poster #4838's way. They are all valid ways to play. Someone else's way of playing is not dumb, retarded, unfair, exploitative, boring or whatever else unless they themselves deem it so.

[Kagemusha]

Agree with Goo Poni there.
Play the way you want to play.
I alternate between building a death fortress in the mountains to trying to role-play an actual crash landing; my colonists arm themselves initially to defend against wildlife and build a natural colony. I use the first raid as the impetus to building defenses and barricades.

Both play styles are just as fun. I play on higher difficulties when I aim to "metaplay" and build with defense and exploits in mind, pre-emptively getting things done before they would be needed or even considered by stranded survivors.

In a single player game exploits are simply that. Exploiting the AI and/or mechanics to gain an advantage. This is a natural play style and perfectly logical. We are trying to pit ourselves against the machine and win.

Role-playing like we don't know the mechanics is just a different way of playing. Neither is right or wrong. They just are.

Don't thing Clayton means to be a troll is this. They are simply trying to voice an idea. Admittedly a little strongly against the mountain dwarves. But, to be honest the mountain dwarves are being abrasive towards playing any other way too. To each their own.

I find that I get bored of turtling up every game, so I mix it up. It's like playing two different games.

[RemingtonRyder]

Something to consider, whether you prefer an outside or mountain base, is that you can rebuild a base.  You can't (at least not at the minute) rebuild colonists.

So, let's say that being raided by an overwhelming force is inevitable.  If they can't find your colonists because you've dug yourself a shelter and sealed up the entrance, they can't kill them.

It might not be the most dignified or honorable way to survive a raid, but you can't win them all.

[stefanstr]

I have read this whole thread and it is interesting how strongly people feel about the different play styles.

I am torn when I play myself. I would actually prefer an open base due to role-playing reasons but I end up digging into the mountain most of the time because the raids become too much for me to handle out in the open. Maybe I am not as awesome as Clayton who claims to not have this issue.

What I think is the reason for this dichotomy is that it is unrealistically easy to dig into rock. In real life, you would have to rely on natural caverns. Digging a tunnel into a mountain requires either very heavy equipment or years of hard work. Maybe something for Tynan (or a mod) to consider would be making drilling more difficult (e.g., make the mountain core of granite that requires research to create drills to actually dig into). And make the game generate more natural caverns. Just a thought.

[Rahjital]

I used to build open colonies without turrets in Alpha 5 and earlier because at the time, some tactical thinking and good cover could ensure you victory even when outnumbered ten to one. The new health system makes fights much more dangerous, so I think building killboxes is fully justified now that a single shot can kill a colonist instantly.

In case anyone is interested, the largest colony I've ever built was this Alpha 5 one - not a single turret ever built and even the wall was put up only after two years. Of course, that was back when colonists were bullet sponges and would be trashed very quickly nowadays.

[sparda666]

Outdoor bases are fine if you can locate it near a natural choke point or surround yourself with a stone wall. the rest is about carefully planning your building placement so you can create good cover. one good method is a hallway of doors. If the entrance of your base has a hallway of doors, you have some good cover and a place to fall back for early game defense.
Example:

= stonewall
- door
                   ==-==-==-==-==-==-==
ENTRANCE
TO BASE
                   ==-==-==-==-==-==-==

colonists can use the doorways as cover and as enemies approach, they can fall back to doors further back.

add crap in the hallway to slow enemies down.

[Goo Poni]

Something to consider, whether you prefer an outside or mountain base, is that you can rebuild a base.  You can't (at least not at the minute) rebuild colonists.

So, let's say that being raided by an overwhelming force is inevitable.  If they can't find your colonists because you've dug yourself a shelter and sealed up the entrance, they can't kill them.

It might not be the most dignified or honorable way to survive a raid, but you can't win them all.

Unlike the raiders which can throw mountains of flesh at you with no downside because they don't exist outside of the raids. The raiders that flee will never be seen again and in a little while, another 50 man raid. I tried using a mod that added a bunch of weapons (Project Armoury in combination with TechTreeMinami), spawned in a sniper rifle with 45 range and something like 80 damage. Highest damage and range in the game, basically one-shot colonist and raiders alike with a single solid hit, would tear off legs and arms and god knows what. 15 colonists in a shielded bunker with these weapons, all with 20 in shooting still died to the horde that rushed them. Using the dev console to fill the bunker with shields, I was still left with more or less everyone wounded and 5 of them had lost a leg and thus were no use to the colony any more. Raiders can sustain these extreme losses, I cannot. It's almost punishment for playing the game.

[Feniks]

If raiders colonies had population and after beating their attack they had to recover people would start leaving outside mountains. Imagine you are raided by 50 local pirates that's like most of their colony trying to raid you. You kill them and defend your bas then you know there is no more raids from this group for few months. But if they take smaller losses then they can attack you in 2 weeks again.

[TheGrover]

Outdoor bases are fine if you can locate it near a natural choke point or surround yourself with a stone wall. the rest is about carefully planning your building placement so you can create good cover. one good method is a hallway of doors. If the entrance of your base has a hallway of doors, you have some good cover and a place to fall back for early game defense.
Example:

= stonewall
- door
                   ==-==-==-==-==-==-==
ENTRANCE
TO BASE
                   ==-==-==-==-==-==-==

colonists can use the doorways as cover and as enemies approach, they can fall back to doors further back.

add crap in the hallway to slow enemies down.

I like the idea, give this man/woman a cookie.

Back on topic, ive tried both types, and prefer a mountain colony. Expansion is easier when you just need to dig out rather than chosing between opening up your perimeter wall to speed up the extention, or forcing your colonists to walk around the perimeter to build a few pieces of wall.

Then theres the abundance of metal as you find plenty of ore veins just building, and the free floor construction requiring no materials.

All you need is a way to combat the cabin fever, such as placing a garden between two busy parts of the colony.

[Garen]

the downside to killbox and mountain turtle is for several reasons

1) usually these require turrets, thus need more power, thus need more metallic resources.
2) a solarflare will indefinately screw over not only the kill-box but the entire colony far more then an outside, due to again relying on turrets and hydroponics and sun lamp for food.
3) droppods and gathering supplies will be absolute hell for killbox strategies. not as much as outside but it impacts differently.
5) mechanoids give no feels about your killbox/chokepoint.
6)explosive users love your chokepoint.
7)your chokepoint will be harder to escape from if insanity breaks through, which is easie compared to outside

[hopdevil]

Two Questions about underground colonies.

1:  Does the overall wealth of a colony effect the size of the raiding force sent against you?  If so using existing underground stone will decrease the value of your colony.   Unlike walls built outside that contribute to overall colony wealth.

2:  Can you launch a ship that is built INSIDE a large rock formation?  I know you can build one inside a colony with a "built roof" and you don't have to "remove the roof region" to launch.  Basically, I am curious about whether or not you can launch a ship from inside a mountain.

[Garen]

Two Questions about underground colonies.

1:  Does the overall wealth of a colony effect the size of the raiding force sent against you?  If so using existing underground stone will decrease the value of your colony.   Unlike walls built outside that contribute to overall colony wealth.

2:  Can you launch a ship that is built INSIDE a large rock formation?  I know you can build one inside a colony with a "built roof" and you don't have to "remove the roof region" to launch.  Basically, I am curious about whether or not you can launch a ship from inside a mountain.

1) yes, though that is being changed a bit on alpha 7, the more colonists you have the larger raider force, however if you have too much wealth the same will happen.
2)doubt it

[Goo Poni]

the downside to killbox and mountain turtle is for several reasons

1) usually these require turrets, thus need more power, thus need more metallic resources.
2) a solarflare will indefinately screw over not only the kill-box but the entire colony far more then an outside, due to again relying on turrets and hydroponics and sun lamp for food.
3) droppods and gathering supplies will be absolute hell for killbox strategies. not as much as outside but it impacts differently.
5) mechanoids give no feels about your killbox/chokepoint.
6)explosive users love your chokepoint.
7)your chokepoint will be harder to escape from if insanity breaks through, which is easie compared to outside

Generally, you would want to build an access port near the killbox that can be sealed up when raiders are present which alleviates a lot of those issues. Mechanoids? Pah, "You don't need to be a better shot! You just need to shoot more bullets!". Turrets and as many Charge Rifles as you can get your hands on. Considering you're building into a mountain, metal should not be an issue. With some luck, you'll also uncover a valley with open air access and you can grow crops there should the hydroponics fail during a flare. Alternatively, install the TTM mod and keep it low-tech with oil-powered generators and grills, you can keep an entire base running on the oil generators, especially when oil is constantly spewed onto the map by the two deposits. Just keep a reserve of oil and you'll be kushty.