What is the difference between auto turrets?

[Joseph Sneed]

Game provides basically zero description of the the benefits to using different ones. Also none of the weapons have damage values listed ether...

[HAZ]

just stick to laser... the machine gun reminds me of the pea shooter from plants vs. zombies... only it fires less rounds (I want a a full spread of non-stop bullets peppering the skys... but no, doesn't happen).

The missile turret is good - but get the mod that makes you NOT have to aim (which is dumb imo).

[starlight78sso]

Power consumtion is one other difference.

[wcbarney]

IMHO the machine gun turret is best. The only time you really need turrets is when being attacked by hummingflies; all other attacks can be countered successfully by forcing the bugs to run the gauntlet through your flame throwers.

[Joseph Sneed]

Originally posted by wcbarney:

IMHO the machine gun turret is best. The only time you really need turrets is when being attacked by hummingflies; all other attacks can be countered successfully by forcing the bugs to run the gauntlet through your flame throwers.

I have noticed the flame throwers are kind of OP. Really need to be later game bugs that are immune to them to force your defense to get a little more involved. Also not really sure what the point of upgrading fortifications is if bugs never attack walls when there is an open gate nearby.

[wcbarney]

Originally posted by Joseph Sneed:

Originally posted by wcbarney:

IMHO the machine gun turret is best. The only time you really need turrets is when being attacked by hummingflies; all other attacks can be countered successfully by forcing the bugs to run the gauntlet through your flame throwers.

I have noticed the flame throwers are kind of OP. Really need to be later game bugs that are immune to them to force your defense to get a little more involved. Also not really sure what the point of upgrading fortifications is if bugs never attack walls when there is an open gate nearby.

The bugs do attack walls. You shouldn't get complacent with your defensive fortifications thinking they won't be attacked. The bugs can eat through a wooden wall in seconds and then they enter your base & destroy your stuff. The purpose of having concrete or carbon fortifications is to allow your survivors enough time to kill the wall-attacking bugs. Of course you want to make sure that those bugs inbound to your flame-thrower gauntlet are all dealt with first.

[Joseph Sneed]

Originally posted by wcbarney:

Originally posted by Joseph Sneed:

I have noticed the flame throwers are kind of OP. Really need to be later game bugs that are immune to them to force your defense to get a little more involved. Also not really sure what the point of upgrading fortifications is if bugs never attack walls when there is an open gate nearby.

The bugs do attack walls. You shouldn't get complacent with your defensive fortifications thinking they won't be attacked. The bugs can eat through a wooden wall in seconds and then they enter your base & destroy your stuff. The purpose of having concrete or carbon fortifications is to allow your survivors enough time to kill the wall-attacking bugs. Of course you want to make sure that those bugs inbound to your flame-thrower gauntlet are all dealt with first.

I mean every once in a while I get one or two that don't quite make it to a gate but at almost 8 years in I have never had a wall focused attack.

[wcbarney]

Originally posted by Joseph Sneed:

I mean every once in a while I get one or two that don't quite make it to a gate but at almost 8 years in I have never had a wall focused attack.

I know that to be true; however, shux happens! I just had an attack by only 18 "giant mantisses" (haven't bothered to observe them yet). Before most of the bugs got around to entering my death gate, three of them attacked the metal gate in my concrete fortification. Before I could have Ken run around the perimeter and kill them, they destroyed the gate and headed directly for my safe house where they managed to eat part of the roof. Damned bugs!

[bmnoble981]

Originally posted by wcbarney:

Originally posted by Joseph Sneed:

I mean every once in a while I get one or two that don't quite make it to a gate but at almost 8 years in I have never had a wall focused attack.

I know that to be true; however, shux happens! I just had an attack by only 18 "giant mantisses" (haven't bothered to observe them yet). Before most of the bugs got around to entering my death gate, three of them attacked the metal gate in my concrete fortification. Before I could have Ken run around the perimeter and kill them, they destroyed the gate and headed directly for my safe house where they managed to eat part of the roof. Damned bugs!

I found that having a cheap fence build just outside your perimeter, deals with the issue of the ones that break off to attack the walls, they break through that layer of wall, realise there is another layer redo their travel calculation then proceed to the maze of death with the rest of the swarm.

That said playing on medium and only just into year 4 or the crash landing, not sure if this tactic will hold up in the long run.

[wcbarney]

Originally posted by tiamats4esgares:

Originally posted by bmnoble981:

I found that having a cheap fence build just outside your perimeter, deals with the issue of the ones that break off to attack the walls, they break through that layer of wall, realise there is another layer redo their travel calculation then proceed to the maze of death with the rest of the swarm.

That said playing on medium and only just into year 4 or the crash landing, not sure if this tactic will hold up in the long run.

Interesting. I've done things like have a thick wall with a thin wall inside but never the opposite. Might try it.

This won't work near the flamethrowers, though. I put TWO stone walls protecting them and the scarabei STILL attack through both of them to get to them, even though attacking them from the front is wide open (other than getting flames to the face).

Stone walls, wood walls, brick walls -- none of them are strong enough to last more than a few seconds. If you want a STRONG wall you've got to use concrete or carbon fortifications.

[Onibaku]

I think concrete is pretty easy to get though. Should be enough rocks to mine around and if you're feeling really froggy, just tame a few Shriekers to periodically dig up stone for you. Make like 10 furnaces in a place nearish your stockpiles and set them to make concrete. I'm always flooded with brick and concrete because I set them up to make it while I'm working on other things. I usually do this early so that when I actually need the brick or concrete, it's already available.

[wcbarney]

Originally posted by tiamats4esgares:

Originally posted by wcbarney:

Stone walls, wood walls, brick walls -- none of them are strong enough to last more than a few seconds. If you want a STRONG wall you've got to use concrete or carbon fortifications.

As I said in another post, wooden fortifications are strong enough if you're on top of things and are far less resource-heavy and time consuming.

I know you are an old hand at playing steam games, but your inexperience at Alien Dawn shows. Wooden fortifications are not strong enough. While considerably stronger than any type of wall or fence, the wooden fortifications can still be eaten through in seconds. Only when you erect stone or carbon fortifications do you have strong enough walls so that your survivors have a chance of killing the wall-attacking bugs before they break through.

I haven't bothered to research wooden fortifications for awhile, or I would look at one of my save games and quote you the strength parameters of the various walls and fortifications -- called integrity, I think. I'll go quick look it up and come back and edit this post.

Edit: OK, gone to one of my old save games and have come up with the figures. For fences (material & integrity): Sticks = 10, Scrap = 20, Wood = 20, Poles = 50, Stone = 50

For Fortifications: Wooden - 250, Concrete = 750.

In all cases, the gates are about 20% stronger.

[wcbarney]

Originally posted by Onibaku:

I think concrete is pretty easy to get though. Should be enough rocks to mine around and if you're feeling really froggy, just tame a few Shriekers to periodically dig up stone for you. Make like 10 furnaces in a place nearish your stockpiles and set them to make concrete. I'm always flooded with brick and concrete because I set them up to make it while I'm working on other things. I usually do this early so that when I actually need the brick or concrete, it's already available.

Concrete is one of the easiest materials to get in quantity, because you get 2 concretes for each stone. For brick you get 5 bricks for 3 hay.

I have no experience at taming Shriekers to dig up stone. Stone is almost always readily available near your base, and I just high-light a bunch to mine, and then set one or two of my survivors to mine at priority 1. Doesn't take long to get well over 1K stone, which equates to over 2K of concrete.

Bricks, IMHO, are useful only for interior walls.

[amanda_manx]

I use a mix of things, for large swarms later game I like the rocket launcher especially since they don't need to be close to where the action is so less risk of damage to the turret and they stun where they hit. Lasers are fun against hummingfly as they seem to knock them out of the air pretty quickly and machine guns i use in front of gates with traps. Flamethrowers are great if you can supply the fuel if not they can be a huge resource drain and limit your ability to use the hot air balloon.