are the killbox real necessary?

[Sugar Show]

they shot you, you shot them back.
they stab you, you stab them back.

instead the killbox or "death labyrinth", itself do the same but with less action.

[AlP]

Originally posted by Sugar Show:

they shot you, you shot them back.
they stab you, you stab them back.

instead the killbox or "death labyrinth", itself do the same but with less action.

Now try that on a harder difficulty with a lot of wealth.

[Kittenpox]

Early on, not at all. Ive never really needed a killbox. But later on, especially when you attempt to leave the planet, youre gonna want a more reliable way to clean up the enemies to minimize harm to your colonists.

[Winged Hussar]

Yes, killbox solves 80 percent of the raids and mad animal attacks. This is a survival game, you play until you die pretty much, the escape spaceship building is boring. So, play however you like.

[Bozobub]

Necessary? Nope. But killboxes undeniably make the game easier. If you don't like 'em, don't use 'em, no skin off my heinie...

[TwoTonGamer]

Totally do-able and fun for a playthrough. It would be hard to win, I would imagine, though, but it's not really about winning anyway.

"No killbox" can be a challenge that one would set for themselves. As well as "no turrets" or "no traps" or even..."no walls" (no compound walls).

I cheese the heck out of my walls by popping in and out of doors so I don't know what I'd do without a compound wall. I've done no turrets and I didn't miss them too much but I used a lot of traps to compensate.

[Azunai]

i think the "storyteller" AI is supposed to lower the event difficulty for a while if one of your pawns goes down during a raid. if you don't have a killbox you'll occasionally have downed pawns and the raids shouldn't get overwhelming. at least in theory :)

[Darren]

I usually go with an onion of defenses instead of kill-boxes to allow my guys to concentrate fire, and fallback to deeper positions as needed. Often I can hold the outer-most defenses, sometimes I have to go back a level or two.

[avil]

Defence gets a little bit complicated when numbers are 10 to 1. They just can walk to you casually and beat up at this point. Need something to concentrate their attention in so you can AT LEAST use your mass destruction weapons.

[This PC]

Admittedly, there are mods to change that. After having played like 600 hours, I got tired of killboxes too.
I fetched combat extended, it changes combat to hitbox based instead of rolls and gives you many tools to fight without needing killboxes. (long range cannons, mounted grenade launchers, it's really fun!)
Fair warning, it does make the game quite a bit easier, but I'm sure you can find modding alternatives like that that will allow you to customize your experience if that doesn't suit you. ^^
For me, the fact that it removes the need for killboxes sold it. ♥
It also adds a plethora of other interesting mechanics like ammunition, explosion shrapnel and such. :D
As for the people who tell you you don't need one, it's because they keep their colonist and wealth numbers low, it reduces the intensity of the raids, but it also reduces incoming resources, since you get a lot from raids. That's another solution if modding is not up your alley. Raids actually scale on your "progression", so if you stall, don't increase your wealth or colonists while in a comfortable position, raids will never get to the point where you actually need ak illbox.

[Sugar Show]

Originally posted by AlP:

Now try that on a harder difficulty with a lot of wealth.

Which difficulty? Like this?
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1824435375

This?
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1846798887

This?
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1823108784

or this one?
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1848394021

[Cannenses]

I have 2 colonies (approx 15 & 10 in each), both without kill boxes to funnel raiders/man-hunters. I use natural physical geography. And I don't have compound walls either. The only thing that I (might) have is a firebreak (paved sandstone flooring). "Might" because I haven't built them yet but am planning to.

I do have turrets - only mini-guns, about 6 in total, all spread out, not concentrated. These guns are actually not that useful in mid- to late-game events for killing, but as distraction.

The last time I checked, I have had about 60 incidents. Prob more now. No colonists have ever died from firefights (so far).

In my opinion, kill boxes are not necessary. Playing as Builder, with Cassandra Classic (no mod).

p.s I used to think killboxes were the way to kill the mechdroids but actually they are v. easily taken down with sufficient animals against the slow-moving centipede. Don't like those dropships, I take them out the very moment they drop (after beating out the fire).

[Preechr]

Trap mazes are boring in my opinion, and flawlessly efficient killboxes aren't much better, but I probably think of the game in a stupid way. While we may understand that the raids increase in difficulty respective to colony wealth, our pawns wouldn't know that, so I don't factor in for it. My colonists would notice that raid force sizes have grown larger over time, but the idea that this is due to their accumulation of stuff passing through a mathematical formula determining the point cost of the next raid party that will happen after a derived number of days... well they think they're real, and I wouldn't want to blow their little minds so I don't tell them.

I generally play on large maps so I can move my defensible positions away from my base and I don't spend a lot of time on them until late game when everything else is done. I play heavily modded though, to the point that I don't really even remember what vanilla is like to be honest. On combat heavy playthroughs, I'll be training and gearing up an army for defense and as each soldier gets all the gear he or she needs for combat, I'll put them on the defense team using the defensive positions mod to sort the combatants from the less capable pawns.

When a raid happens, the non-soldiers all head for a protected spot in the middle of the base and the soldiers line up in a field somewhere, then we plan on how to best defend against the raid, which usually means taking cover behind trees, rocks or corners of mountains near a natural bottleneck it looks like the enemy will be traveling through, sometimes augmented to tighten it up and remove cover. Essentially a type of killbox, but not as optimized as having the only way into my base designed with machicolations, crenellations, embrasures and murderholes with mines and auto-turrets.

[corisai]

You may think you aren't need killboxes...

Until you will get raids with several doomday / tripple launchers. This will teach you in a hard way.

Originally posted by Sugar Show:

Which difficulty? Like this?

Tons, and tons of mods.

[V-Fib]

Killboxes do make the raids much more managable, especially when they come at you with 100+ people. Not to mention it saves on resources, since you can focus all of your efforts on one direction, instead of 4+

[Morkonan]

Originally posted by Sugar Show:

they shot you, you shot them back.
they stab you, you stab them back.

instead the killbox or "death labyrinth", itself do the same but with less action.

They are not necessary, but it's very difficult to progress far without using some way to channel attacks to one area so you can concentrate your defenses.

However, that does not mean that you can not purposefully construct a way of channeling enemies to one area and then also purposefully avoid building it into a fool-proof "Death Maze/Killbox." For instance, I don't build perfect kill-mazes/kill-boxes. I build "enough" defenses and enough ways of channeling enemies through static damage (traps/turrets) that they will likely be very injured/reduced by the time I must confront them with my armed pawns.

Yet, for the "End Game" I always beef up my defenses because the end-game waves are... Well, they can suck if you are not prepared. :)

Walls are in the game, turrets are in the game, traps and mines are in the game.. all for a reason. It is VERY difficult to build up a lot of wealth in needed items/builds without having set up some good static defenses that can take care of many raiders.

Note: If you don't want to build up heavy defenses, then training animals that can Release (attack enemies) might be the route you should take. That will at least get damage done to raiders without having to put your pawns directly at risk. That's the sort of idea you have to focus on - How can I damage enemies without receiving damage to my valuable pawns? There are few good answers to that question that don't involve static defenses, but a focus on Animal Husbandry is probably the most practical.

PS - Players that routinely move past the intended colony population into the realm of having 20+ pawns desperately need good static defenses against Raiders, especially if they're playing with Randy as the narrator. I don't know how those players would survive without killboxes and deathmazes. :)