Dryad Army, approved

[Smartboy64]

I remember back when Ideology first came out there was some discussion on how good the dryad's where. Well, after taking more time to use them I have to say they are awesome.

I have an army of 12 Dryads, 8 Barkskin and 4 Clawer (which means I have 3 Gauranen Trees). I have 6 combat able colonists, 1 melee with a plasma sword and 5 with a variety of ranged weapons.
Just had a raid of 27 tribals. I have no turrets, traps, or defenses. Killed all the raiders and the only damage to my colonists was a scratch on the melee fighter. Just had the dryads swarm the raiders while colonists unloading into them.

I think dryads are very good to have in a colony. Maybe not for food/medicine production (haven't bothered with that since I have hydroponics), yet for defense they are great. They do not require food, beds, or anything for survival. If they get wounded you stick them in a pod for 3 days and all their wounds are healed. Great disposable soldiers if needed.

In terms of maintenance, give someone two field hands and plant all the trees near each other. My slave usually ends up with spare time after tending to all three trees daily (at 100% connection). 1 slave = 12 defenders. Worth it, regardless of Ideology.

[dande48]

The other dryad types are pretty great also. A Berrymaker tree give you 80 berries a day, which is enough to feed 4+ colonists. The medicine makers will give you more medicine than you could ever use (8 a day). Haulers constantly haul, whenever there is hauling to do.

Overall, a great addition.

[Pizzarugi]

The only thing I don't like about the guaranlen trees is the maintenance. 4+ hours of constant pruning every day which cuts into half of my colonist's work schedule. If that much time is going to be lost pruning, then haulers and fighters are the only dryads worth taking.

That said, I picked up two mods for it. One doubles the connection gained while pruning (1% to 2%), and having psychic sensitivity improve pruning speed. It makes sense logically since the pruning speed says that the process is more psychic than anything and deafness means you can't bond with the tree, so one's psychic sensitivity should play a bigger role.

[Smartboy64]

I like the idea of psychic sensitivity upping the pruning speed. Nice little touch.

The maintenance is a little rough. It's one of those long term investments. Hell, my slave only reached the point of pruning 3 trees at once after in game months of work, and that's with two field hands installed. I think if someone is patient and willing to give a slave/colonist over to it, it's worth it in the very long term. I just dealt with a mechaniod cluster by swarming it with dryads. Lost 2 of them in the attack, much better then losing a colonist or limbs.

The main drawback I see is the well being of the person pruning the trees. If my slave is knocked out for just a day it's going to hurt the trees badly. If the person in charge of pruning goes down, it's very hard to recover from it.

[Garatgh Deloi]

If you really want to make the Gauranlen trees as good as possible then i suggest using a Circadian half-cycler and a joywire on your pruner, since pruning the tree is not effected by consciousness. Also the tree connection meme off course for even more efficiency.

You can have a single pawn take care of a lot of Gauranlen trees if they don't need to sleep or do recreation.

[Fyredrakon]

Yeah, the healing pod change really makes them viable for combat situations overall. Replacing limbs is pretty powerful if you want to keep your army in good condition. I like em, i just need to find an optimal way to use them in battle, since once you get out of tribal you tend to try to take out opponents from a distance, and use killboxes, but dryads don't help very much in those.

[Smartboy64]

Originally posted by Garatgh Deloi:

If you really want to make the Gauranlen trees as good as possible then i suggest using a Circadian half-cycler

If I get a 4th pod I'll have to keep that in mind.

Originally posted by Fyredrakon:

I like em, i just need to find an optimal way to use them in battle, since once you get out of tribal you tend to try to take out opponents from a distance, and use killboxes, but dryads don't help very much in those.

I have no luck with kill boxes. Hell this colony I just finished up putting a wall on 3 of 4 sides (leaving a large opening on one side) and outside of the raid I mentioned in the original post I have nothing but breaches/sieges. No 'normal' raids. It's my luck, happens all the time.
Even at higher tech unleashing the horde of Dryad's just ahead of your colonists provides a good distraction, allowing your snipers or people with big guns (i like mini guns) go about without much danger.

[Blazikasu]

Originally posted by Smartboy123:

and that's with two field hands installed

Field hands have no effect on tree prunning time, just plant skill of the pawn.

[RCMidas]

Honestly, having half-cyclers installed on your pruners is now possibly the very best use for them. Consciousness has no effect on pruning speed either, so they can constantly prune, constantly grind Plants, constantly switch between multiple trees, and constantly make themselves far more useful.

[Fyredrakon]

yeah, they are pretty easy to scale with royalty. I think they are near impossible to scale with just ideology, maybe wakeup? Pruning speed increases pretty steadily early game, but that caps out at some point when they stop being able to learn faster than they forget (which makes like 0 sense). My 3 recommended implants for royalty end-game (or depending on your luck with traders) are the half cycler, for more time, nuclear stomach, so they don't spend as much time eating, and joywire, so they don't spend as much time recreation (it cancels out the no recreation moodlet) just gotta give them enough happy to not break, which should be pretty easy if they are tree worshipper, since thats an easy +12 constant mood from amazing trees.

[Smartboy64]

Originally posted by Dozo:

Field hands have no effect on tree prunning time, just plant skill of the pawn.

Well I learned something today.....

In terms of the happiness that's been easy. The slave is married and stays in a pretty room. Paired with eating Fine meals everyday they never have a mood issue, and they don't even worship trees. I'm running a Transhumanist supremacy colony.

[ichifish]

Just a couple of points about combat dryads so that people don’t repeat mistakes I made with the trees (first run):

1. Location location location
I planted the trees next to my anima tree, partially for rp but also because of the map, and it takes FOREVAH for the dryads to get into the fight. That alone prevents them from being useful enough to sink much time into them.

2. Dryads + psycasts aren’t a great mix
Like released combat animals in 1.2 dryads get in the way of AOE casts like berserk/verigo/blinding pulse, so consider making someone besides your casters the pruners (and see below), especially if you rely heavily on casting.

3. Oi, it’s a lot of time
If you have a pruner who’s doing more than plants, like meditating for casts, it can really be a big productivity hit. I used two of my starting pawns as pruners and in addition to the daily time suck they are out raiding a lot, which can be a huge hit to the %. One pruner was out for about six days on raids, then got sick on the day he returned and the tending dropped from about 55% to around 5%.

[Smartboy64]

ichifish all I can say to that last point is..... oooofff, that hurts.

As for location, I try to keep the trees center of my colony (or near the 'edge' of it, not the map edge). As soon as I see a raid and think I need the dryads I draft them and send out the dryads a little ahead of it. Not a perfect plan, it just seems to work well enough.?

As for the AoE casting bit....I got no answer to that.

[RCMidas]

Same as if you're using melee pawns for AoE psycasting. Timing. Or use it regardless because dryads are replaceable.

[Fyredrakon]

Dryads can't get emped like melee pawns (you break shields and stop their bionics), which is useful vs. mechanoids. Vertigo pulse is usually useful for splitting up a large group. Chances are if you've got dryads in there they're doing the melee engage and essentially distracting enemies similar to vertigo.