How to bring the colonies out into the open again?

[Kegereneku]

And for the no perimeter wall obligation the manhunter packs need to be changed drastically. https://youtu.be/6vhG9E8o_e0?t=1112 This is one of the best examples of why the manhunters need to go if Tynan wants open colonies, like he has always been trying to push people towards.

That's indeed a superb example.
I feel he was even lucky to get the chance to build an open-base like that.

WHAT IF the boomrat weren't TERMINATOR ? What if they hunter other animal ? What if they even RETREATED when injured ?
A pack of Warg is already extremely dangerous, if you made them avoid turrets, traps (animal sense!) and just kill the fauna you obtain a dangerous enemy that you can't bait but will maim your colonist, make you use valuable medicine, make you lose hunting opportunity, all the while making outside activity impossible.


I will gladly make it a "WHY Manhunter pack need rework" thread with that video if someone else don't see a less clickbait title and want to do it.

Making it so that attacks enter the map from the direction of the enemy's town on the worldmap would make outdoor defenses more practical compared to backing yourself into a corner so you can deal with anything that appears from anywhere. Maybe throw some noticeably smaller raids from other sides.

That's really not a good idea. The whole point of Rimworld is to survives odds, not build defense toward a known "enemy base" (which is also a step back toward killbox) as if you simply guarded a great wall of RimChina. Just consider that's the raiders trying a different direction to win again.
Event with fixed direction would only matter if it made for a interesting gameplay (like huge herd migration ? I'll be making a thread on Windmill too)

[Pax_Empyrean]

That's really not a good idea. The whole point of Rimworld is to survives odds, not build defense toward a known "enemy base" (which is also a step back toward killbox) as if you simply guarded a great wall of RimChina. Just consider that's the raiders trying a different direction to win again.

Aside from "the point is to survive odds" not actually meaning anything, a killbox is what you have to do when the enemy could approach from anywhere. If you know that the hostile tribe is west of you and the pirates come from the east, you can defend yourself in a way that doesn't involve planting your ass in a mountain.

[Kegereneku]

Unless you are using the military definition of killbox (which is simply a zone where post of the shooting-at killing-at is happening) you don't build killbox "anymore" (since that famous AI upgrade that make them dig around).

At best what you mean is "Build defense wall and turret all around" which ISN'T A BAD THING ... if only we weren't forced to have the wall (for Manhunter pack) or fully enclosed fortress (for FALLOUT). Simple raid do not require killbox if you accept minor damage and spend the resources on something else. Not even siege are bothersome (their point WAS to force you out to kill them) but since a mountain-bunker is : fully enclosed, immune to mortar & can be self-sufficient with food, this cause the worst of the imbalance.

Solving that by making the largest bulk of enemy come from fixed direction would only accentuate the "tower defense" and "mindless wave of enemy" problems that were mostly solved.

[Pax_Empyrean]

Solved? They're still throwing mindless waves of enemies at me.

Best way to deal with that is tunneling into the mountains along one edge of the map, so that they always attack me from the one side. If I could tell where most of the attacks were going to come from, I could maintain a good defense without having to dig into the mountain to get it, which would give me more options in how my bases are built without taking unnecessary risks.

[Kegereneku]

"Mostly solved", at least now they act less like suicidal lemming.
Anyway, it would be a downgrade of gameplay if the enemy only came from one direction. We want to solve the current problems, not just... redirect it. Especially since all it would take is 2 different factions attacking you from different direction to be back at square one.

Less dangerous/destructive raiders would be a solution if Bunker and fortress wouldn't stay ridiculously more efficient.

[SpaceDorf]

To run the risk of it being said before.

The solution is either the direction or the number of the attackers.

My suggestions are ( and I know some of them include serious effort )

1.) The Storytellers should tailor the attacks even more to the type of your colony. Acknowleding that there are different types of colony which need different kind of treatment. Open colony Types don't need to be besieged for example. Also the choice of weapons for the attackers should not be random, but combined with my second suggestion :

2.) Upgrade the Attackers to be Tactical Units, not Zerglings. This would include moving in formation ( matching walk speed to the slowest ) Target goals with specialized weapons ( Blowing up the wall with rocket launchers and grenades, setting things on fire ) sniping attackers, and using firing lines and overpower tactics. ( shooting at single targets, switching targets to the incoming melee dude/s )

3.) Clear goals for the enemy attackers. "We just wanted to kill a few of them and destroy their stuff." was never a reason for war or attacks. ( I know this allready came up alot, it is still worth repeating. ) Goals are : Capture pawns, Steal resources (
could be resources on the map, I know I have tons of mined steel lying around .. ) And yes. Diplomacy should be a thing.
( maybe sending a unarmed pawn to the leader to discuss terms .. )

4.) Include the mood System more into combat. Make individuals brake away from combat if they reach a certain threshhold. Especially those with low combat skills and/or no passion in them and fitting traits (  nervous, pessimist, paranoid .. )
While other gets boosts ( bloodlust, brawler, trigger happy .. )

5.) Have enemies ruin your day in other ways. Commando Troops/Scouts show up ( announced like visitors ) hang around the map a few hours/days and leave again or flee instantly when you try to attack them. They just scouted your map and may have constructed mines and traps.


Finally : Usually in TripleA games fixes like Combat AI and Performance are done in the last phase of the game when its feature complete. Where most of the strategy games dumb down their AI to make it beatable by humans because they are to competent ( MinMaxed, know everything from the beginning, being just faster in executing perfeft B.O.s ) or cost to much performance.

I don't know how Tynan feels about this part of his games and what his feature goals are so I don't know where its going there. It would be nice to know more about his vision

[Darth Fool]

Maybe it's just me, but I don't find that manhunter packs are such a problem that they force me to build either a perimeter wall or dig underground.  Usually, I like manhunter packs because with a little micro-managed urban fighting I can acquire a bunch of meat without having to go far from my base.

[DariusWolfe]

Agreed, Darth Fool. I don't consider Manhunter packs especially dangerous at all, unless they catch a colonist out away from shelter, then they're freaking awful. As animals are almost always faster than humans, it's very difficult to get someone out to your colonist and get them back to base. The mass numbers of animals make it difficult to slow them down with leg injuries.

But if I can get people inside the fort, or surrounding outbuildings, they're not especially dangerous, as you can usually repair the door fast enough to keep them from busting it down, and they'll give up after a few minutes. If you have only a single door, they're more annoying, as you've got to try to pop out of the door when the animals move away, get off a few shots, then get back inside before they reach you, then repair the door until they go away again. With multiple doors, or people in multiple buildings you can kite them back and forth much more effectively.

[Kegereneku]

Remember that now Manhunter will destroy door if they saw a colonist pass (it was made to prevent hit&hide exploit).

[MikeLemmer]

Agreed, Darth Fool. I don't consider Manhunter packs especially dangerous at all, unless they catch a colonist out away from shelter, then they're freaking awful. As animals are almost always faster than humans, it's very difficult to get someone out to your colonist and get them back to base. The mass numbers of animals make it difficult to slow them down with leg injuries.

But if I can get people inside the fort, or surrounding outbuildings, they're not especially dangerous, as you can usually repair the door fast enough to keep them from busting it down, and they'll give up after a few minutes. If you have only a single door, they're more annoying, as you've got to try to pop out of the door when the animals move away, get off a few shots, then get back inside before they reach you, then repair the door until they go away again. With multiple doors, or people in multiple buildings you can kite them back and forth much more effectively.

With one exception: I still hate maneating Boomalopes.

[Alpha393]

How to encourage open bases in two easy steps:

1: completely remove manhunters or severely reduce their numbers/make them always appear with random non lethal injuries until further notice.

2: reintroduce/un-cripple 'manhunters' in the form of 'flesh eaters' that eat any living organism at all, excluding other flesh eaters.

3: watch as open bases suddenly prosper.

And a few more sticks and carrots.

Air duct: a vent that is placed like a power line. Seriously this would be so freaking helpful for heating multiple small cabins without using campfires or heaters.

Climate control unit: works as both a heater and AC, quite expensive, takes up 2x2 tiles, several times as strong as either tempurature control device.

Add the ratio of walls in contact with both outdoors and indoors as a factor to raids. More indoor/outdoor only walls means higher value modifier. Closer to 1/1 (or something else this is an arbitrary example) the lower the value.

Open colonies should end up fighting slightly more balanced raids because of this.

Make turrets "cheaper" in raid calculations and buff their DPS, range, and health considerably.
Wait wait let me finish, put the pitchforks away for a minute.

And make turrets multiply in value when densely packed. Arbitrary example: 2 turrets placed with a 1 tile gap are worth as much as 10 turrets with 10 tile gaps, 20+ tile gap makes the turret worth 1x it's base value.

The end result of this would be the crippling of any and all killbox strategies with any level of efficiency below the newly buffed open defenses, making killboxes about as efficient as open defense in terms of balance after some proper tweaking.

Literal killboxes are still there for those who want them, and 'kill zones' basically become the new killboxes. except they can be countered by the storyteller properly.

A bunch of raiders are dying from exclusively turret/trap damage? Send a sniper in the cover of darkness to slash their power lines, disarm their traps, and shoot out a turret or two. Or ten.

Perhaps a saboteur raid type that remains hidden from the player until spotted, that will covertly destroy turrets and traps?

When a colonist spots a saboteur the player recieves the threat alert 'a sabotage is in progress. Be sure to check on your defenses.' If you fail to repair the turrets in time, they explode.

Saboteurs should probably not even exist on the map as a visible detectable entity until spotted by a colonist. Just give them a ghillie suit that provides camouflage in the appropriate environment but reduces it otherwise.

Saboteurs are ignored by turrets and traps unless discovered, and will flee after discovery or after disabling 30% to 50% of your turrets and traps.

[DariusWolfe]

Remember that now Manhunter will destroy door if they saw a colonist pass (it was made to prevent hit&hide exploit).

I addressed that. They'll attack it, but if you repair it, they'll give up before the door goes down. Since this update, I've repelled a few manhunter packs from my front door; I lost one door because I'd forgotten about it, but I had a secondary door inside, so I was able to retreat further back, and avoid making the mistake again.

It *might* not be effective for something like rhinos, but if you have a granite outer door, I suspect it'd hold just fine against them, too.

[mumblemumble]

I think maybe having a coordinated strike of grenades / rockets at key points (remember general positions colonists use  for cover, and turret placement) and then blowing them up might be a good approach, same with mortars. Surgically striking them with a triple rocket, or something, perhaps with a few riflemen covering, and hoping for the best once they hit.

This would force the colony to fall back, and fight inside, past the first line of defense which is now in embers.

This would be relatively easy imo, just forcing a rocket launcher person to get in cover, fire at the target with a few people covering him, and then launching the assault after the damage is dealt

[Alpha393]

So basically the infantry based space western equivalent of a drone strike? I like it.

[SpaceDorf]

More like standard military doctrin for dealing with a fortified position ?