Post your defense

[fluffysnowcap]

frigged you guys would like to see thiss
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msG5P_0hnWU

[PensiveElephant]

frigged you guys would like to see thiss
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msG5P_0hnWU

That's a cool shooting gallery .

[fluffysnowcap]

thanks next i just need to optmise and conpress and figger out hydroponics

[The_XaFFaX]

For my defenses and general strategy I use this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnJ17pLbMFU

Check it out and let me know what you think!

Thanks,
XaFFaX

[savaze]

I was pretty sick for a few days and this is what resulted... This is an end-game shot.

Rules I followed for this build:
-All rooms were going to be 7x7 if possible, so that if a charge was placed in the middle I wouldn't have to rebuild walls/stuff (corners are safe spots during a blast).
-All things that could explode were going to be placed 3 tiles away from anything else (meaning rooms with turrets were 8x8).
-If a room had to be bigger make sure that there was at least 1 tile clearance around big things, for easy access to put out fires.
-Use as much of the mountain as possible for structure so i don't have to worry about walls burning.
-Use a burn room instead of graves, with at least two tiles of mountain surrounding so that fire won't spread through.
-Curb enemies trying to have range advantage by building a small maze that opens into direct firepower.

I rolled with this defense during batch 13. It's easy to do right off the bat, with two rooms to live in until you dig deeper. It gave me the versatility of bombing, attempting to get some captures through overwhelming firepower, or a charge to soften them up and then finish them off with the guns and turrets. I didn't commonly lose a turret/person even when I let them walk through the initial bombing gauntlet. One time I had a group of 40+ bandits, with 10 grenadiers, and I only lost two turrets and one person. The whole mountain is carved out into equal sized rooms. At this point in this game I was getting more berserk squirrels than bandits, and bandits were usually dropping in batches of 30+. I had over 100 crazed squirrels attack at one time, followed shortly by two groups of bandits that dropped simultaneously, that was crazy with no loses for me.

[ShadowDragon8685]

That's quite a hive you've got going there, Savaze.

If I were you, though, I would have extended the boom rooms in the front towards each other by one tile, and added an additional explosive charge in the middle - that way, each room would be a 100% guaranteed kill on anyone who wasn't at the extreme side ends or Tough.

(If I had been me, on the other hand, the entire opening area would be one long trench with only a 1x1 intro and exit with overlapping explosive charges and 2 on each end, so the whole thing would annihilate literally everyone who got caught inside.)

I also see that you're going for the "scare the living shite out of them to keep them in line" colony management strategy that should backfire so spectacularly with constant mental breakdowns and psychotic episodes, but somehow doesn't because there's nothing like your own ensuite caged corpse to keep you sharp and focused.

Still, bet it was effective. Since you seem to be big on maximizing space, though, why are you giving everybody individual rooms? With people crammed out of their gourds thanks to all the pilloried corpses, you could just cram them all into a sardine can and they wouldn't raise a fuss.

Also, some other things jumped out at me.

1: You could have a colonist sleeping and living in the canteen, grow-room, and armory, without ill effect. Also that geotherm room, probably. (I like to put a courtesan in the canteen/comms room, hopefully ensuring they'll seldom be far from the comms console.)
2: Those batteries are EXPLOSIVE, and they're not 3 tiles from the walls. Damaged batteries will go boom with the vigor. You might want to redesign that battery battery, maybe with fewer actual batteries but with them safely farther from other structural thingies.
3: Your killbox design is... Not what I would have gone with. I find turrets to be massively wasteful in terms of the space they use up versus their actual benefit. I'd put the turrets where your colonist sandbags are and revamp your turret enfilades into colonist enfilades, entrenched behind forbiden hydroponics tables and flower pots/gibbets (probably gibbets for you,) that the bad guys can't path through and can't take effective cover behind, whilst your guys can fire out over at them. Use two rows of flower pots/hydro tables to keep the bad guys at a distance if you must. Also, your illumination is quite literally counterproductive: there are penalties to hit targets which are in darkness, and no penalties to hit illuminated targets. Hence, you want your soldiers standing in darkness (which raises fear, which is good for you since you went with it,) and your enemies brightly lit.
4: Darkness raises fear. Ergo, you could save a substantial sum of metal and a lot of energy by selling off every light in your fortress except the one(s) illuminating your killbox and your grow-up, whilst advancing your own psychotic asylum-based loyalty assurance methods. You could also save on your power budget by replacing those sun-lamps with two regular lamps next to one another.

[savaze]

Hey Shadowdragon,

I wasn't understanding what you mean, but it just dawned on me, if I extend the room by a row with the door on the narrow side I wouldn't need more than one room, hrmm.

I think that the fear route is ridiculous, but it works in-game. I had a couple colonists that were always on the verge of breaking from normal wear and tear (food and sleep). When I decided to mine out the whole mountain I figured it was time to get rid of the warning, so it was kind of a scare-care. I decided to put down gibbets and leave corpses and whatnot forbidden towards the end. I probably won't play that way next game, I like the cleaner look.

I know that I could leave colonists in generator rooms and in the canteen, but I was going for organised.

The batteries were kind of a last minute insert since they weren't needed. After I put the batteries down I decided that the game was pretty much done, so I left it be.

I agree with the turrets not working well. I found that putting turrets down behind the colonists got more misfires and thrown things hitting my defenders. It seems the AI targets the turrets first. Originally I had that whole kill box room three tiles deep of mountain before I thinned it out for the last minute scare-care changes. I've been planning my whole base with the mining tool before my initial three ever start doing anything. I think I'll try going above ground when i play next. I've seen a few designs where people were using anything but the sandbags for cover. I think I'll give that a go next game.

I didn't know about all the darkness penalty/bonuses. I had lights illuminating everything, but there's a bug where electronics will reattach to the nearest outlet when you restart the game. So some of my lights would attach to patch-walls that had no electricity when I load it up and it was always cheaper to delete/replace the patch than path out more electricity.

I didn't know that sunlamps could be replaced by two standard lamps.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Hey Shadowdragon,

I wasn't understanding what you mean, but it just dawned on me, if I extend the room by a row with the door on the narrow side I wouldn't need more than one room, hrmm.

Let me try to illustrate.



On the top is your boom-box as it is now. It's two-chambered and each chamber has one explosive. One explosive won't kill any raider who isn't already badly injured. The result is that you spend 25 metal injuring a bunch of folk but not killing them.

On the middle is a very simple alteration to your killbox as it is, which would take about two minutes, a couple of miners and a few constructors, as well as a hauler to move the corpses from gibbet to gibbet. Two explosives will guarantee the death of anyone who isn't on the extreme right or left edge of the killbox or is tough. You'll get a lot more bang for your buck, quite literally; it's entirely possible you'll kill an entire raid, or force a retreat, without your colonists ever seeing contact.

On the bottom is how I would have implemented your killbox. It's a straight line of Boom, doubled up on the ends to ensure a kill except at the extreme edges. Anyone who's within that and isn't Tough is Dead. A Tough guy might be dead, too, if he were standing parallel to one of the bombs when it went off, as he'd be in the splash range of three bombs; this is more likely towards the ends.

I would also suggest building red carpet under the bombs, whatever you do with it. When the Boom Box is full of corpses and dropped guns and blood, I find it a helpful guide to where to rebuild my bombs.

I think that the fear route is ridiculous, but it works in-game. I had a couple colonists that were always on the verge of breaking from normal wear and tear (food and sleep). When I decided to mine out the whole mountain I figured it was time to get rid of the warning, so it was kind of a scare-care. I decided to put down gibbets and leave corpses and whatnot forbidden towards the end. I probably won't play that way next game, I like the cleaner look.

Yeah, it is. Nothing says "loyalty" like "They gave me a gun and packed three dead bodies into my bedroom to scare the shit out of me."

I know that I could leave colonists in generator rooms and in the canteen, but I was going for organized.

It is organized! Just organized along nontraditional lines. Remember in Firefly, how Kaylee had a bunk but often slept in a hammock in the engine room? I'd put the best repairers in with the steady whine of the geothermal generators. I also like to put a courtesan in the canteen, because I expect they spend their time "entertaining" other colonists at night. Why that takes place in the canteen, well... Like I said: Nontraditional lines.

The batteries were kind of a last minute insert since they weren't needed. After I put the batteries down I decided that the game was pretty much done, so I left it be.

Fair 'nuff.

I agree with the turrets not working well. I found that putting turrets down behind the colonists got more misfires and thrown things hitting my defenders. It seems the AI targets the turrets first. Originally I had that whole kill box room three tiles deep of mountain before I thinned it out for the last minute scare-care changes. I've been planning my whole base with the mining tool before my initial three ever start doing anything. I think I'll try going above ground when i play next. I've seen a few designs where people were using anything but the sandbags for cover. I think I'll give that a go next game.

The AI does target turrets first. In ascending order of priority, it targets: Walls (attacks of opportunity only;) the nearest building that can't shoot back; the nearest colonist shooting at me; the nearest building that can shoot back. They never target explosives. I never put the turrets behind my colonists, because a burning turret is an invitation to kill retreating colonists moving back to a fallback point/being rescued by one of the con artists, and because my colonists will be caught in a cross-fire.

Turrets are okay in front of colonists, or perpendicular to them, or both. I like to give the AI obvious cover against the turrets for them to bunch up into, whilst leaving them completely enfiladed against my colonists on the sides. They run to the sandbags, over open terrain and get cut down, and even those who make it to cover still only have cover against the turrets and the colonists shooting from behind the turrets, not against the ones who have them in enfilade.

I didn't know about all the darkness penalty/bonuses. I had lights illuminating everything, but there's a bug where electronics will reattach to the nearest outlet when you restart the game. So some of my lights would attach to patch-walls that had no electricity when I load it up and it was always cheaper to delete/replace the patch than path out more electricity.

Yeah, that's annoying. I wish they'd attaching to the nearest outlet that actually has power running through it!

I didn't know that sunlamps could be replaced by two standard lamps.

It only checks for "Brightly Lit," not whether the source of said bright illumination is natural sunlight, artificial sunlight, or very bright LED lighting that shouldn't be conducive in any way to plant growth. (Or, knowing this game, really, really inefficient incandescent bulbs.) Standard lamps cast "Lit" illumination, and "Lit" + "Lit" = Brightly Lit, at about half the energy cost.

[savaze]

I ran with your idea Shadowdragon, but changed it by 90 degrees...



They bottleneck at the door, pounding on it to get in. The room fills and then I pop it. I usually catch the majority of huge bandit raids, with the stragglers fleeing before ever setting foot inside my defenses. Playing it on Randy Random, I would have to have several of these rooms to guarantee catching simultaneous raider drops without losses.

I have had bandits attack (melee) my charges with bad results for them... Not sure if that's a bug.

I had a friend recommend the design for the shooting gallery. I don't like it. My defenders climb over the hydroponics during combat constantly. If they go unconscious or catch on fire they always fall into the middle. They don't climb over or fall over on the areas where I put sand bags. I think if I were to try a similar design I'd lose the doors (they do nothing but suck up energy) and put sandbags in their place. I'd keep the hydroponics. I'd ditch the twin lamps and stockpile in the middle. I think I'd embed the lamps into the wall near the entrance and put the hydroponics out on the edge of illumination. That way I wouldn't have to worry about flammables and explosives so much.

[ShadowDragon8685]

I had a friend recommend the design for the shooting gallery. I don't like it. My defenders climb over the hydroponics during combat constantly. If they go unconscious or catch on fire they always fall into the middle. They don't climb over or fall over on the areas where I put sand bags. I think if I were to try a similar design I'd lose the doors (they do nothing but suck up energy) and put sandbags in their place. I'd keep the hydroponics. I'd ditch the twin lamps and stockpile in the middle. I think I'd embed the lamps into the wall near the entrance and put the hydroponics out on the edge of illumination. That way I wouldn't have to worry about flammables and explosives so much.

That's a very, very bad implementation of an effective killbox design. The basic premise isn't unsound, but it's been so poorly executed here as to be literally worse than useless. Your enemies have more cover than your colonists do!

[savaze]

I concur, but I thought I'd give it a try to see what he was raving about. I didn't think it would work well, but I figured I'd learn a few things I didn't know in the process. I learned that a boom-room could be made out in the open using nothing, but hydroponics tables and a couple of walls and a door (for a choke point) would make a good boom-room, since the raiders seldom attack the hydroponics tables.

[ender008]

Like someone else above, I delete a wall tile after battles for ease of movement. Snipers stand on the red tiles _behind_ the walls, automatic fire weapons stand on the other spots behind the remaining walls. Colonists will lean around the walls to fire, very superior defense. Lose autoturrets now and then and may get an incapacitated colonist once in awhile as well. I play on hard and it's not so bad. I have since moved the large bay of colonists into their own rooms as I mine out the area but I didn't see that much of a negative impact with them all shacked up in the same room (easy on power with a lot less doors and lights this way)

[attachment deleted by admin: too old]

[ShadowDragon8685]

Like someone else above, I delete a wall tile after battles for ease of movement. Snipers stand on the red tiles _behind_ the walls, automatic fire weapons stand on the other spots behind the remaining walls. Colonists will lean around the walls to fire, very superior defense. Lose autoturrets now and then and may get an incapacitated colonist once in awhile as well. I play on hard and it's not so bad. I have since moved the large bay of colonists into their own rooms as I mine out the area but I didn't see that much of a negative impact with them all shacked up in the same room (easy on power with a lot less doors and lights this way)

That's... A good implementation of a pillbox! I would make some modifications, though. First off, I'd wall off your shooting gallery in order to roof it over so as to give your shooters the benefit of darkness, even in daylight, then cut the firing ports out of it later.

Secondly, I'd extend your shooting gallery to the edge of the wall on the east, at the extreme north end of the gallery, so as to get a proper enfilade going. The shooters at the extreme north and south of your pillbox won't have lines of fire on jack shit. Again, roof it over and then sell walls out from under it, to benefit from darkness.

Thirdly, don't forget the interior firebreak! Quite honestly, I'd pave over the entire mother, but an interior firebreak would work okay.

Lastly, put the flower pots outside the sandbags so nobody can path over them, and use a sandbagged door to come and go. Not only will this prevent enemies from trying to get into your shooters' grills, but it will mean that if things go completely pear-shaped and you have to try to fall back and make a stand elsewhere, they'll have to go through at least one more door.

Also, consider putting some lights in the courtyard; under a roof, but out in the open, so that the bad guys will have the benefit of nice, bright illumination, the better to be shot under, even in the middle of a driving rainstorm under an eclipse.

[skiddyfisk]

:effort:

[ShadowDragon8685]

Two words come to mind: Hilariously inefficient.

That's at least 2,000 metal, which is way more than you can afford to lose simply to blow up a raid, especially as with a nice choke-point and a line of boom you can easily kill a hundred raiders with about 375 metal's worth.