Force field use

[Continuum]

I have yet to find a great use for force fields, but I keep WANTING to use them because it would be cool. But the extreme production (20 metal alloy per square) and power costs always seem prohibitive.

I've played around with using the gates in combo with motion sensors to only turn them on during an incoming attack, but the gates are even worse at 2 energy/square maintenance cost vs 1 energy/square for the fixed force fields. Interested to how other people may have found a good use for them that is superior to just using carbon or concrete fortifications.

[Furball]

I eventually end up running a force field perimeter... way into the end game... as long as I have enough powercell generators to cover my daily consumption (+1 just in case), then I'm good...

My outermost "forification" is the force field, with matching force field gates in front of the regular gates... then a square or two inside would be the last physical wall, which usually is cement.

On the front side (where it leads to the flamethrower alley), it's force field then I have a carbon fence about 6 squares away going in.. then carbon fortification behind that.. just in case.

The idea is, you or your turrets can shoot through the force fields... so having the lower fence nearest to it gives the best defense-sightline combo. I realized this when I put a couple of turrets in the middle of the base to take care of stray fliers, and when I changed the main gate into a force field, the turrets were shooting through it and into the flamethrower alley.

Of course, this strategy is paired with a couple of sirens so the bugs know where to go... plus 8~10 flamethrowers on standby.

[Continuum]

Do sirens attract the bugs? I always thought they were to wake up survivors and the meat lure was to attract the bugs.

I like your idea of putting force fields in front of fences to shoot over. I've been experimenting with having force gates linked to a second motion sensor channel so that the gates don't activate until a bug is already in the kill zone.