Tough game...

[Matchstick]

Man alive, but this is one brutally tough game.

Maybe I'm not playing it right or something, but of the three "serious" colonies I've started (the first was a sort-of tutorial: the Phoebe AI on an easy setting, so probably doesn't count) two were completely wiped out.

A scyther and then a raid with a marine (combat armour + sniper rifle) picked off all my colonists one-by-one from half-way across the map in two separate waves of attacks, and that was that.  And in the other, all the squirrels on the map went mad.

At first I laughed: after I'd (just barely) survived encounters with mechanoid centipedes, what could squirrels do?  Then I saw the living carpet of furry bodies streaming across the map.  Less than a minute later, all my colonists were unconscious/incapacitated and bleeding out.

Both those colonies were on the mode below the normal one ("Rough" I think?).  Now with my current game, I play on the setting below that.
Oh, and in a desert biome (no more death by squirrels, har har).

Anyway, just had to vent.  All my poor, poor colonists 

[Halinder]

...dude, I'd take squirrels over megascarabs anyday.

[milon]

For defense against snipers, just build a perimeter wall with some doors or small openings.  Can't snipe through walls/doors, so attackers have to come within your range to engage.

[Listy]

[...] what could squirrels do?

It's a little known fact the most deadly event is the horde of psychotic Boomrats. And Squirrels are just one small explosion removed from Boomrats.
Although armoured creatures like Tortoises or Megascarabs (go watch "The Mummy" as a Public service announcement for what you've signed up for) can be pretty bad!

If you're luck it'll happen at night when everyone is inside the wire, so to speak. If not it'll happen when your colonists are spread out across the map, then you're in trouble.

[ShootyFace]

I feel like it's gotten tougher all around. I've always played the Challenge difficulty, and was pretty good at getting a productive colony up and running, then alpha 8 came out and I've had more full on wipes than I have in any previous alpha. And I'm not even mad, getting a colony to thrive now feels like more of an accomplishment, and the game is starting to feel like it has enough moving parts to make planning and prioritization extremely important while not requiring a ton of micromanagement. In other words, you pay much more dearly for a mistake now, and a lot of that has to do with the new temperature and medical systems, as well as whatever tweaks I imagine Ty made on the overall difficulty curve.

[Kinakin]

AFAIK the size and power of hostile events are decided only in part by AI and difficulty setting. The last partis  suposedly calculated by the "wealth/value" of your colony. This value is calculated bythe value of your stockpile and the strenth of weapons and turrets.

Stockpiling and building to much to fast can drastically upscale the power of raids beyond what your current defences can handle.

The addition of new things to the game such as coolers and artwork also has increased the overall amount of things that increase colony value.

But we havent seen the addition of proportionally strong defencive features like stronger turrets, better cover, better weapons or tougher armor.

Basically the things that increase the size and power of attacks have multiplied while our tools for handeling them have stayed the same. End result means the challange has increased.

[ShootyFace]

Thanks Kinakin, I understand that much, but having played enough Cassandra Classic by now, the hostility ramp seems to go something like: pissed off squirrel, half naked raider, 3-5 man death squad, and just gets nastier and nastier. The fact that everything Ty has added and tweaked has made the game tougher is a huge plus for me, but I've also had a lot of time with the game. I feel new players are gonna have a bad time on anything higher than Rough.

[milon]

Difficulty used to be based on colony wealth, but that only plays a negligible role now.  It's now based on colony size (number of colonists) and colony age.

[Listy]

But we havent seen the addition of proportionally strong defencive features like stronger turrets [...]

My 10x Plasteel Gun turrets in a bunker with a Plasteel Research bench disagree!

[Matchstick]

For defense against snipers, just build a perimeter wall with some doors or small openings.  Can't snipe through walls/doors, so attackers have to come within your range to engage.

Thanks for the suggestion: that seems to work.  I guess I lost that particular colony because of inexperience (it was my second): I didn't realise that many things can out-range turrets, so I built mine in a defensive circle on the perimeter of my base (which was out in the open).

I know better now 

In addition to walls, as you've suggested, I also use the local geology to advantage: placing turrets just around a bend so raiders/mechanoids can't get line-of-sight to them without coming around the corner, at which point they're in range of a hail of bullets.

I've also found that leaving a "sacrificial" turret well in front of the others, to attract raiders engaging in melee (tribespeople, mostly), can be beneficial: when it explodes after taking enough damage, it will often outright kill 2 - 4 surrounding attackers straight away.  Sometimes, that's enough to cause the rest to flee.  (Can be a waste of metal, but better than losing a colonist.)

These "tricks" have helped a lot.

Still, tough game.

[Matchstick]

[...] what could squirrels do?

It's a little known fact the most deadly event is the horde of psychotic Boomrats. And Squirrels are just one small explosion removed from Boomrats.
Although armoured creatures like Tortoises or Megascarabs (go watch "The Mummy" as a Public service announcement for what you've signed up for) can be pretty bad!

If you're luck it'll happen at night when everyone is inside the wire, so to speak. If not it'll happen when your colonists are spread out across the map, then you're in trouble.

Cheers for that: makes me feel better.  I figured myself for a complete doofus after losing to the "squirrel incident".

Honestly, the desert biome is my favourite now, mainly because there are so few animals on it.  Especially with mountains, there's so little free space left over, and so few edible plants on what is available, that many critters just die of starvation.

Hunting parties consist of colonists wandering about collecting animal corpses.

The only downsides are crazy-high temperatures in Summer and the struggle to get enough food - limited arable land and so few animals actually makes it quite hard.

But I'm really enjoying that aspect of the game.  It adds a whole new dimension to everything: all of a sudden, harvestable agave plants are something I pay attention to (no berry bushes in a desert).  And when I spot a "herd" of one or two dromedaries, there's much rejoicing.  Hydroponics is a life-saver, literally, but wasn't something I ever bothered with before.

So I'm really enjoying the challenge, especially since it's so different from the raiders/mechanoid combat one.

Cool game (still tough, though).

[milon]

The only downsides are crazy-high temperatures in Summer and the struggle to get enough food - limited arable land and so few animals actually makes it quite hard.

Take a look at Fertilizer Pumps if you haven't.  They turn any ground except water into Soil.  Their range is 2 squares in all directions from the pump, aka a 5x5 grid centered on the pump.  (FYI, Tynan has taken them out of the next alpha.)