Attacking biters with turrets makes all weapons pointless

[Zequez]

It's just too easy! Place electric poles connected to you base until you reach the biters. Place 32 laser turrets in a second. Wait until the turrets are done with the massacre.

What's the point of a flamethrower, granades, mines and those magic bombs, if all it takes is a turret connected to you network to kill everything in sight.

I think laser turrets should be nerfed somehow.

I mean, I know the game is about automation, and killing automatically is also part of it. But then why bother making different weapons? In that case, I call for drone strikes!

[just_dont]

I would like to someday see the big gap between ammo-based turrets and electrical turrets removed.

At the moment, ammo-based turrets are simply worthless. They require MORE setup (automatic ammo feeds, etc), but they become technologically obsolete even vs. medium biters.
I would like to see flamethrower turrets (great vs. hordes of smaller biters, require flamethrower ammo obviously) and some ammo-based late-game turrets (high caliber chainguns, HE rounds?). The last one should be useful vs. big biters and MORE powerful than an electric turret (as it'll require an ammo feed line). It could use a different kind of ammo (not usable by player) to ensure some sort of proper damage vs. armor balance.

PS: About the "turret creep" strategy. Devs are aware of that, and they do want to implement some sort of a limiter on such strategy.

[BenWo]

Totally agree about the ammo based turrets, would be great to see a lot more options for those. I wouldn't mind still seeing endgame-worth laser turrets, but they should require incredible amounts of power to encourage you to only have a few.

PS: About the "turret creep" strategy. Devs are aware of that, and they do want to implement some sort of a limiter on such strategy.

This really only seems like an issue with the laser turrets since they require zero setup. I'd think turret creeping with ammo turrets should be allowed (even encouraged) since creating an auto-feeding turret setup is still like a factory, it's output is just death.

If further disincentive for creeping with laser turrets is needed (beyond increased power requirements), how about implementing transmission loss in the power grid? It also would add difficulty to managing power within a large factory of course, but there'd be no chance of laser turrets being effective very far from a power source.

[ssilk]

It is already planned (if not coded) that we cannot built anything near to the villages.

[Puzzlemaker]

It would be good if there was a visible reason... maybe allow things to be built near, but the building all have roots that attack and cause damage.

[Teurlinx]

Would be solved pretty easily if the biters prioritized the turrets & especially the poles as much as the player. As it is they just keep following the player weaving around the turrets.

In the end game currently it is way more efficient to just rambo bases though. There's so many biters that turrets just take too long

[Zequez]

It is already planned (if not coded) that we cannot built anything near to the villages.

Ahh, that's interesting, they could have a soil kind of like Zergs from StarCraft, and after you remove the village the soil recedes until it disappears.

[ssilk]

I can remember something like that. Maybe you can search for "Zerg" and find it...

[hipscumbag]

I mean, I know the game is about automation, and killing automatically is also part of it. But then why bother making different weapons? In that case, I call for drone strikes!

I think that the combat is a chore, personally, and so I am very grateful for anything which lets me automate it away. Drone or artillery strikes would be great, but until then, I am going to embrace turret creep and any other way I can focus on my own brainpower, not keyboard dexterity.

[krux02]

I totally agree. But even smarter enemies would also help. very often they only need to destroy a single electric pole to disable all turrents, but they are just not smart enough.

[ssilk]

For me "smartness" of computer controlled enemies means, that he drags a chance card and does, what is standing on it.

The reason is, that CCEs are otherwise too strong.

In my opinion this works so: the biters have an overall behavior. If nothing else said, they behave like so, which is in general a relative neutral behavior. This includes also following pheromones or alarms. But - depending on many factors - some biters drag such a chance card and then they follow more complicated algorithms, like looking for a weak point in your defense. Or biting down some power poles.

I mean this is very good modable, cause the basic behavior is written in c++ and controls the thousands of biters and you as modder can control that with some smart lua scripts for some single biters. The single biters create pheromone-tracks or others things to control the masses of biters, which just keep following their standard program.

[Kiapha]

Perhaps have it so the default is the pheromone-controlled mostly-neutral, then have moddable behaviors such as "Target" "Follow" "Attack" where they might target certain types of buildings (fast biters vs power poles anyone? Or perhaps big biters vs turrets with small biters following, so that the turrets engage the bigs first, then the smalls switch to target power lines. This would also work great if ranged biters get added, have them set to follow larger more durable biters so they can get in range alive more often. Or perhaps "Follow player" just to make you paranoid without attacking, then attack if you place anything that causes pollution?)

Or for more random behaviors, perhaps add in reverse behavior so that death attracts them occasionally, perhaps add in the ability to create a new base as another chance, so in rare cases they might swarm to your base and set up their own right beside you. Or probe your defenses, and if they get through, go after just belts, just power lines, etc.

Perhaps also have a small chance for hyper-intelligent behavior where a small number of biters are given optimized AI that acts similar to the Berkeley Overmind, though that would require quite a bit of effort, so it is quite unlikely I think.

[GotLag]

Give turrets an "initialisation" timer that prevents them from firing for 10 seconds after they've been built.

[Teurlinx]

Give turrets an "initialisation" timer that prevents them from firing for 10 seconds after they've been built.

I don't think that will do much. The standard tactic is building the turrets a little back anyway.

Again, the fix is really simple: make biters prioritise turrets & poles as much as the player.

[AQJ]

Give turrets an "initialisation" timer that prevents them from firing for 10 seconds after they've been built.

I don't think that will do much. The standard tactic is building the turrets a little back anyway.

Again, the fix is really simple: make biters prioritise turrets & poles as much as the player.

Then you build a wall and that 'fix' goes out the window, besides if the biters prioritized poles that would put an unfair detriment on the player making multiple bases basically impossible unless you have decentralized power networks.

I think a charge-up time would be a good at least partial fix

[Teurlinx]

Give turrets an "initialisation" timer that prevents them from firing for 10 seconds after they've been built.

I don't think that will do much. The standard tactic is building the turrets a little back anyway.

Again, the fix is really simple: make biters prioritise turrets & poles as much as the player.

Then you build a wall and that 'fix' goes out the window, besides if the biters prioritized poles that would put an unfair detriment on the player making multiple bases basically impossible unless you have decentralized power networks.

I think a charge-up time would be a good at least partial fix

Nah, if you build walls that's only a partial solution. The big biters tear those down surprisingly quickly. Believe me, if they prioritise turrets instead of chasing the player who is running around the turrets it becomes a lot harder. With, or without walls.

And the electric poles... don't you think it's really cheesy that a player can get away with such a glaring weakness? It's like a tank with a giant air balloon on its back that would explode the tank if hit.

Biters should really be able to attack such a high priority target. To get around that weakness, maybe the devs should make items that power locally. It would be a good use for the battery mk 1 / 2 items for one.

[hipscumbag]

The aliens are pretty numerous and persistent, and I've usually got better things to do than fight them myself, so I'm not particularly upset that they are easy to defend against. It is a terrible pain to have to go and siege their bases myself, though, doing donuts in my car and dropping poison capsules on the worms, retreating, etc.

If alien attacks were rarer and the player could have a little more heads up regarding their approach, I might not mind having to defend against more clever aliens. For now, I prefer combat being pointless and smoothed away by good turret infrastructure. The game's about automation and logistics, not alien combat, anyway.

[Kiapha]

And the electric poles... don't you think it's really cheesy that a player can get away with such a glaring weakness? It's like a tank with a giant air balloon on its back that would explode the tank if hit.

Biters should really be able to attack such a high priority target. To get around that weakness, maybe the devs should make items that power locally. It would be a good use for the battery mk 1 / 2 items for one.

I agree completely. Biters should go for vulnerable crippling targets like that, and batteries or capacitors could easily fill the role of long power lines. Add in a charging/discharging station and you could carry trainloads of charged batteries to an outpost, discharge them, then ship the drained batteries back to recharge. Sure, it would mean more need for accumulators and larger outposts, but it would also give incentive to try using projectile-style turrets or risk losing the outpost due to a cut power cable.

[hipscumbag]

It also seems to me that large biters have such phenomenal health, armor, and regen that it is impractical to try to kill them except by laser turrets. Combat shotgun +5/+5 hardly scratches them; only a bank of laser turrets can turn out the necessary damage per second.

[Teurlinx]

Fully upgraded combat shotgun with piercing shells does a decent job, if you can fully hit them. When they are chasing I usually resort to throwing grenades as fast as they go to thin the pack a little. Also very hand to clear a path through the trees.