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.

[SwampDragon]

Publicado originalmente por Dr. Uncredible:

Ok, you´re kind of selling me on the "No Killbox-Challenge", having remote bases for intercepting raids does sound kind of interesting! Might try that once my next colony gets eaten by horrors. ^^

Just make sure people in your outposts can safely fall back without being exposed to too much fire. I like building them in to rock formations with a back door and escape passage, for example. You can then line the escape route with traps to slow them even more. If your sniper takes a doom rocket to the face, then at least it was only one colonist (who may yet survive) and a bunker you've lost. You may even find the AI takes a good chunk of its own vanguard with it. ;)

Publicado originalmente por corisai:

Publicado originalmente por SwampDragon:

I don't ever get raids like that because I don't (pointlessly) stockpile wealth.

Problem that your playstyle is incompatible with many great mods because either they add some godly enemies or (and much often) expensive new stuff.

That may be so, I have nothing to say on the subject of mods because I've never used them.

As for the rest of what you said: I don't know what you mean? Using animals is viable, of course it is. Anything's viable if it works, and if it's fun. Keeping large animals in ice biomes is very expensive though, it's not exactly cheesy. Often I simply can't afford to keep animals, other than a few huskies maybe. It's not mandatory.

[This PC]

Think it's worth mentioning that this game has a scenario creator, which allows you to disable events and such. Very useful in tuning the difficulty you want. You can make your pawns less hungry less often too, as much as you can make it harder on yourself. Again, I repeat myself, mod everything you dislike, don't like killboxes and want like 30+ colonists ? Find mods that change combat to give you tools to fight without needing it. Despite what others have been saying, in Vanilla, I never really found a way to have a very large colony without a cleverly placed killbox. ^^ It's just too efficient. :x
And yeah you can play the game by stocking minimal wealth and carefully managing the size of raids you get, but you might want a different experience out of the game, and this game allows you to do that. Use it! :)

[AlP]

Publicado originalmente por SwampDragon:

Publicado originalmente por corisai:

How you're dealing with several single-shot launchers in raid? Without save/load ofk

Publicado originalmente por AlP:

Yeah, and when you get a huge raid or a manhunter pack like ones we showed earlier, you do what?

I only play permadeath.

I don't ever get raids like that because I don't (pointlessly) stockpile wealth. I only stockpile what I need. I also don't play for countless 10+ years before leaving the planet. By the time Cassy is throwing out raids of that size I am long gone. Also, I never have more than 15-18 colonists because colonists die on permadeath.

As for manhunter packs, if there are two many to manage (or they are boomalopes) I just shut down the compound and seal the gates. More often than not though, I will wait for them to all split up then isolate small groups by letting a few in to the compound at a time.

Doom rockets and the like are the biggest threat, but I build a few pillboxes away from the base to snipe those targets (when possible) before they reach the compound. Otherwise I fall back to the base and jump them in tight quarters with animals and melee.

Yep, sometimes it's messy, but messy is fun. Not all of my colonies survive of course, but that's also fun. :D

What is the size of raids that you supposedly get then?

[SwampDragon]

Publicado originalmente por AlP:

What is the size of raids that you supposedly get then?

If you don't believe me that is totally fine. I am not sure why though. How do people who build killboxes counter sappers, sieges, bugs coming out of your drills or mechanoids crashing through your bloody roof? Killboxes can't be the answer to everything. You probably deal with those threats the same way I deal with regular raids. Shoot them.

With huge wealth enough to spawn 1000 raiders, I can imagine those other things to be very scary indeed and a killbox isn't going to help.


Anyway, just play the way you enjoy most. Good luck out on the rim.

[AlP]

Publicado originalmente por SwampDragon:

If you don't believe me that is totally fine. I am not sure why though.

Because raids get too big to effectively manage at the difficulties you claim to be playing. They can also get too frequent to manage.

Your solution seems to be to simply stop playing before they get to that point, not to deal with them. So your answer is actually in favor of building a killbox, because otherwise it's not possible to keep playing.

[This PC]

Publicado originalmente por SwampDragon:

How do people who build killboxes counter sappers,

Clever placement of the box and consideration of map geometry from the moment you land.

Publicado originalmente por SwampDragon:

sieges,

With mortars of your own.

Publicado originalmente por SwampDragon:

bugs coming out of your drills

The way I dealt with this in Vanilla is by having decked out miners with bionic implants to outrun them.

Publicado originalmente por SwampDragon:

or mechanoids crashing through your bloody roof?

Compartimentalizing your base and creating small emplacements where you can hold your grounds, though to be fair, drops are always lighter than straight up raids in my experience.

Publicado originalmente por SwampDragon:

Killboxes can't be the answer to everything. You probably deal with those threats the same way I deal with regular raids. Shoot them.

No but they make 95% of encounters a breeze.

Publicado originalmente por SwampDragon:

With huge wealth enough to spawn 1000 raiders, I can imagine those other things to be very scary indeed and a killbox isn't going to help.

It doesn't get to that point, and when you have enough wealth to get hundreds of them, you'll take any advantage you can get, including a killbox, otherwise you won't last as long as you could.

Publicado originalmente por SwampDragon:

Anyway, just play the way you enjoy most. Good luck out on the rim.

I agree with that though. =) Just there are some things in the game that you still have to consider, if you don't want a killbox, having a huge colony becomes much less appealing.

You can also disable any number of event in the scenario creator, ie: if you're fed up of dealing with blights.

[Preechr]

Rimworld is not a competitive game, and honestly I fail to understand how the way someone plays a single player game could possibly make them feel superior or inferior to someone else. Compared to actual competitive games, this game is a cakewalk, so if playing Rimworld by some rules you made up makes you feel better than other people, I worry that you don't have a lot else going on in your life. (When I say "you" I'm not referring to anybody in particular, but if it applies to you then I guess I am)

People come to this forum to get help when they run across something they don't quite get out of the game or to complain about ways the game might be kicking their butts. Other people try to help, usually, by offering strategy or mod suggestions or just sympathy.

Where does bragging about being a leet hardcore Rimworld player fit in there?

[SwampDragon]

Publicado originalmente por Preechr:

Where does bragging about being a leet hardcore Rimworld player fit in there?

What on Earth are you talking about? I am not bragging in the slightest, neither is anybody else in this thread. We are having a conversation about the necessity of kill boxes and what is fun and not fun.

Publicado originalmente por AlP:

Your solution seems to be to simply stop playing before they get to that point, not to deal with them. So your answer is actually in favor of building a killbox, because otherwise it's not possible to keep playing.

My solution is to keep my colony small and compact and not to stockpile wealth, when it's time to leave, I leave. This is what I find most fun. Building huge colonies is not my thing really, and Cassy gets real cruel if you overstay your welcome out on the rim. I agree if you want to build a massive colony you might want a killbox, because that's going to get real hard at some point. Infinitely so? But I think massive colonies and such aren't the only way to play. With smaller bases, you won't need a kill box so much.

This is an example of one of my late game bases (building ship): https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1848744468

Another mid game base:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1848744904

What happens when a doom rocket hits a bunker:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1548367176

My current game is still in first year and I don't have screenshots but it's a similar sort of thing.

[This PC]

Publicado originalmente por Preechr:

Rimworld is not a competitive game, and honestly I fail to understand how the way someone plays a single player game could possibly make them feel superior or inferior to someone else.

I do not know where you saw this, no one mentioned one way of playing is better than another, if anything, everyone here provided a wide range of alternative ways to play, there's basically none that are better than the other and the game adapts to how you play, demonstrated by SwampDragon there. =)

Just there are some hard considerations to have, like raids scale with wealth and time if you're on cassy. (Though no, it's not infinite, you can play around with it in the debug console and you quickly see the limits, there's performance considerations too. ^^)

[AlP]

Publicado originalmente por SwampDragon:

My solution is to keep my colony small and compact and not to stockpile wealth, when it's time to leave, I leave. This is what I find most fun. Building huge colonies is not my thing really, and Cassy gets real cruel if you overstay your welcome out on the rim. I agree if you want to build a massive colony you might want a killbox, because that's going to get real hard at some point. Infinitely so? But I think massive colonies and such aren't the only way to play. With smaller bases, you won't need a kill box so much.

In that case, you simply have no business weighing in on whether killboxes are necessary or not. Your playstyle is not a viable strategy.

[Silky Rough]

I am an admitted rookie at Rimworld but learned very fast to roll with mountains at my back and offer limited entrance with a Death Valley welcome theme. Current map, less than 30 men, I don't even wake the guys up. Go Go Traps and Turrets.

And no, I wouldn't know if that's complete overkill or me being wildly optimistic. I think that's part of the fun, burying their dead, not mine - up until the converse, where I get to learn valuable lessons. :)

[SwampDragon]

Publicado originalmente por AlP:

In that case, you simply have no business weighing in on whether killboxes are necessary or not. Your playstyle is not a viable strategy.

Come on man, how can me playing a game normally and without mods not be a viable strategy? Keeping wealth down might not be a good strategy for you, just like accumulating lots of wealth and building huge bases isn't a good strategy for me (it seems rather pointless in fact). Both are valid if they work, both are valid if they are fun. I didn't realise this thread had specific criteria for game styles.

Lots of bad vibes creeping in now so time to duck out I think. Good luck with your strategies!

[This PC]

I do honestly think as well that playing lean is the most efficient way to play, at least in vanilla. =)
The more colonists you introduce, the more potential internal conflicts you introduce, it also increases logistics, hauling and such. ^^
Just that sometimes, we are looking for a different experience. :D
I also recognize it's very hard to see from the perspectives of someone who uses mods, since it can affect gameplay so dramatically and completely changes the experience.
Rimworld's beautiful in a way that it lets you have your own experiences without really trying to guide you, think it's somewhat unfair to judge a different playstyle in the sandboxiest of colony sims. :D
Killboxes are the most efficient strategy if you're going for a huge colony, doesn't mean you have to use them, but they do increase your chances of survival if they're well designed, if that consideration is important to you. =)

[AlP]

Publicado originalmente por SwampDragon:

Publicado originalmente por AlP:

In that case, you simply have no business weighing in on whether killboxes are necessary or not. Your playstyle is not a viable strategy.

Come on man, how can me playing a game normally and without mods not be a viable strategy? Keeping wealth down might not be a good strategy for you, just like accumulating lots of wealth and building huge bases isn't a good strategy for me (it seems rather pointless in fact). Both are valid if they work, both are valid if they are fun. I didn't realise this thread had specific criteria for game styles.

Lots of bad vibes creeping in now so time to duck out I think. Good luck with your strategies!

So what happens when you do start accumulating more wealth, or just play long enough? That's right, your colony dies because you don't have viable defenses, and your notions about having an honorable gunfight get all your colonists obliterated.

This is no different from new players that plop a few traps and a line of sandbags, and then post screenshots wondering what they were doing wrong.

In both cases, you can only survive under very specific restrictions, and for a very specific amount of time. Sooner or later, your lack of defenses get your pawns overwhelmed.

[Darren]

You just build more defenses. If you keep say half your wealth in equipped colonists weapons, armour, mines, trap and turrets you don't need a killbox.

A killbox is just more efficient you can get the same results with more investment.