Bunker Building vs. City Building

[Ͽ҈҉Ͼ]

What works best, really?

Bunker - Not always built into a mountain, but still structured the same way. Most of the base exists as a singular monolithic structure, rooms are connected by hallways, hallways double as means of temperature control. Most everything can be reached without ever seeing daylight. Travel distance between tasks tends to be shorter since you have everything more tightly arranged. Thick wall around exterior acts as means of defense and insulation from the elements. But requires more lighting, becomes harder to control internal threats (like fire or infestation).

City - More sprawling. Rooms are setup as separate buildings where you have open space between structures. Occasionally related structures (processing and storage) are grouped together, but otherwise everything is separated by 2-4 wide paths. It's more modular since you're building areas to suit purpose instead of trying to fit the purpose into whatever area you have mined out. During a raid, you usually have outside walls and can fall back to use the buildings as cover or to split the enemy. Fires tend to be easier to control since they will, at worst, just burn down a single building. But, it becomes harder to control temperatures (heater and cooler in every room), maintain a secured prison, and pawns generally need to move around more between tasks since the base is more spread out.


Make a case for which design plan you prefer and describe your methods for dealing with the downsides of that given design style.

[Bryan=0101]

I pefer nethier one

I often build bases that can transform into bunker or city in the blink of an eye i tend to have a mixture until I need to transform the base a bit

[Martin Harris]

I love making a nice safe bunker with enough funiture to make them happy to regain from debuffes but I feel like the city feel also works due to being able to make turrets in the streets adding lots of protection if your walls are breached

[Elpopeyo]

I am a fan of bunker complex in an open air environment (vs. mountainous). Couple of differences with what you descibed above is that first I can plan ahead without bothering of space constraints and mining, and then I kind of build separate buildings interconnected by covered and closed walkway. Allows me to have many different exits without providing raiders with hidding spots and close melee warfare which can be difficult to manage during big raids. I can also easily take care of manhunter packs without stopping all activities. Main threat remains fire though.

[Readynailer]

Bunker it up.
Look for a nice spot where only 1 side is attackable and dig into it.

[grapplehoeker]

I prefer to build my bases out in the open on flat terrain. They aren't bunkers, in fact you might say they're just a web of rooms around my 'spider'. The spider is the core of the base. It's basically my orbital trading area plus crematorium, surrounded by 24 plasteel turrets which make the whole interior of my base a killzone with deadfall trapped access points to allow raiders to meet the guns from any direction. I've used variations of this design successfully a hundred times or more lol.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=833139198
In this one, I had a herd of elephants as my animal meat shields and plenty of cover to farm raiders from ;)

[Ͽ҈҉Ͼ]

Originally posted by grapplehoeker:

I've used variations of this design successfully a hundred times or more lol.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=833139198

I'm surprised this even works against lategame raids or in case of fallout.

[bigsengineer]

Originally posted by Ͽ҈҉Ͼ:

Originally posted by grapplehoeker:

I've used variations of this design successfully a hundred times or more lol.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=833139198

I'm surprised this even works against lategame raids or in case of fallout.

altho it looks flawed looking at it kinda makes some sense as u will arrely if ever have sappers. that said i would put out some more sandbag/pillar areas for my pawns to hide in so they get safer fireing lines. only problem i see is no room to expand really and to much reliance on turrets

[Ͽ҈҉Ͼ]

Originally posted by bigsengineer:

Originally posted by Ͽ҈҉Ͼ:

I'm surprised this even works against lategame raids or in case of fallout.

altho it looks flawed looking at it kinda makes some sense as u will arrely if ever have sappers. that said i would put out some more sandbag/pillar areas for my pawns to hide in so they get safer fireing lines. only problem i see is no room to expand really and to much reliance on turrets

Also the frequent mental breaks from the cramped living, lack of meal variety, lack of recreation, and junk strewn everywhere.

[bigsengineer]

Originally posted by Ͽ҈҉Ͼ:

Originally posted by bigsengineer:

altho it looks flawed looking at it kinda makes some sense as u will arrely if ever have sappers. that said i would put out some more sandbag/pillar areas for my pawns to hide in so they get safer fireing lines. only problem i see is no room to expand really and to much reliance on turrets

Also the frequent mental breaks from the cramped living, lack of meal variety, lack of recreation, and junk strewn everywhere.

those are minor details i wouldnt have in that design tho. im just commenting on a defensive standpoint

[Astasia]

My mountain bunkers tend to have 3 wide hallways, and because they are made out of all stone fire is never an issue. I like to sprawl them out along a mountain as much as possible rather than tightly packing them in, mostly because I tend to collect very large amounts of resources and need many large rooms to hold them. I find building in a mountain allows for larger builds as you don't have to worry about defending the outskirts as much, and there's rarely any unbuildable terrain in a mountain so it's truly a large blank canvas to do whatever you want with.

[bigsengineer]

Originally posted by Astasia:

My mountain bunkers tend to have 3 wide hallways, and because they are made out of all stone fire is never an issue. I like to sprawl them out along a mountain as much as possible rather than tightly packing them in, mostly because I tend to collect very large amounts of resources and need many large rooms to hold them. I find building in a mountain allows for larger builds as you don't have to worry about defending the outskirts as much, and there's rarely any unbuildable terrain in a mountain so it's truly a large blank canvas to do whatever you want with.

agree 100% but infestations being a bit more unpredictable in spawns is making it a bit more dangerous but still worth

[grapplehoeker]

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=833139198

Originally posted by Ͽ҈҉Ͼ:

I'm surprised this even works against lategame raids or in case of fallout.

It's very effective in late game. It's all about reducing the number of raiders to a point where they will retreat. The deadfalls take out some and then those that follow after get targeted by the turrets, which being plasteel are very hard to destroy. The raiders will fixate on those, meanwhile my shooters can pop out of any door and snipe em. If the raiders turn their attention to the snipers, the turrets get em. Eventually they'll all die or run away.
As for fallout, you'll notice that I have a couple of enclosures full of fields and sunlamps. I have a no roofing order on that area. If there's a fallout, I remove that order and restrict a builder to the area. A roof gets built very quickly and I then have no problem producing food throughout the fallout period.

Originally posted by bigsengineer:

altho it looks flawed looking at it kinda makes some sense as u will arrely if ever have sappers. that said i would put out some more sandbag/pillar areas for my pawns to hide in so they get safer fireing lines. only problem i see is no room to expand really and to much reliance on turrets

Yup, sappers are never a problem, eventually they will have to enter the killzone to get to the valuables in the Spider. I tend not to use sandbags, but rely on doorway coverage or even standing behind the shoulder of a shielded mellee fighter in the doorway if it comes to that and even then it's more of a case of snipe and duck (open and close the door) from different doorways. I can keep anyone pinned from different vantage points. The reliance on turrets is important but only so that I don't have to rely so much on the health of my pawns. I can repair/replace turrets much faster and easier than pawns ;)

Originally posted by Ͽ҈҉Ͼ:

Also the frequent mental breaks from the cramped living, lack of meal variety, lack of recreation, and junk strewn everywhere.

I rarely get them. I usually limit my colony to no more than around 10 pawns and there is plenty of room, meal variety and recreation, including beer and smokeleaf rationing. No other narcotics are permitted.
However, of course there will be some pawns who just can't get along, despite a determined effort to develop harmony. I run a strict 3 strike policy... If they strike out 3 times, they'll go to sleep and never wake up again. This policy works to tailor a harmonious colony ;)

[Bryan=0101]

It's makes no sense the sappers go for your owned beds it's a 2 layer wall they should have target that

[bigsengineer]

Originally posted by 101=5, bryan=5:

It's makes no sense the sappers go for your owned beds it's a 2 layer wall they should have target that

with so many opening even getting sappers will be rare and then when u see where they are heading for u need only open the doors leading to it to get them in the main gates

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

Depends on the situation.

A 'city' configuration compartmentalizes possible damage and threats to individual buildings, but spreads your operation out and makes it more vulnerable to portion attacks. However, because of the isolated and redundant nature, you can afford to throw non-essential structures up faster and even design a town to use them as 'buffers' that can be sacrificed to attackers.

A 'bunker', on the other hand, when designed right, should already compartmentalize key areas and makes the most use of a concentrated space. It is, however, slower to build as the resources to construct it often coincide with essentially gutting a mountain. Especially if you START by going full dwarf immediately (Mining out all the rooms takes time). The generally terrible conditions you get stuck with trying to get the essentials up in this manner makes the first year survival grueling.


I chose a bunker layout myself. And I start with a cross-hallway that gives me primary access in four cardinal directions. Off of that I expand the area near the most narrow length of hall into the kitchen, workshop, and research room. (Access to the exits for rapidly pulling in resources.) The kitchen gets a huge freezer space designated, and the workshop gets a room devoted to raw material storage.

From there, I branch into the long hallways and add the living spaces for the pawns. 5x5 bedrooms for everyone with double beds. The dining room, rec room, etc, end up going in wherever they logically fit in the puzzle, and I then expand into a huge 'random junk' storage room, medical bay, and more bedrooms. After that, I usually have enough resources to start building the immediate area into a citidel. Usually a courtyard nearest the kitchen access becomes the farm.

Overall, the defensive nature of the structure is focused on most of the structure just being an impregnible mass that enemies don't bother attacking, forcing them into predictable areas where I focus on a fast counter-offensive.

As the bunker evolves and my resources build up, I build out from the citedel with a perimeter wall and stone-floor off the ENTIRE interior area (Cross no-man's land, I DARE YOU).

Then I focus on active defense systems, and top it off with an artillery fire base somewhere in the citedel area (The turrets mod that adds the devastator mortars is a particular favorite. Nothing says 'go away' like a 20 round barrage landing in your face. Actually had an invading tribe enter the map and cluster up. There were ~80 of them, I had to throw 74 of them in the incinerator. And it only took a single barrage).

And fires aren't a problem in my bunker, I don't build with wood (except interior doors), and I've learned to isolate coolers and vent them so they aren't right on the outside wall.