Breaching isn't realistic and not fun right now, lets change that.

[PEACEOFWAR]

Little Shadiversity inspiration here, but it makes no sense how breaches are able to bypass rock and walls so quickly, any siege would need to remove rubble from any tunneling and avoid collapse from tunneling as well. I think it would be far more interesting to see enemy's have to remove rubble, put in braces etc. But right now if I build a Castle that I think is pretty good, enemy's are just chewing threw materials like they are paper and not really being slowed down at all. Even using Plasteel doors/walls not seeing any improvement. Just my opinion but we could find a way to make sieges interesting and not so one sided right now. You should be allowed to turtle and the enemy coming to your turf shouldn't have it so easy right now.

[ZS Maeklos]

AI that can't figure out a maze and instead just goes through the wall isn't smart. :P It's simply circumventing the problem.

Smart AI would probably look like this: They approach your base and make a tentative push through the main entrance (probably your killbox). When they starting dying, they pull out. Then they break up into groups, head around your walls, and then use grenades/breaching charges to blow their way in from multiple points. Ideally, the AI would target specific things: your power production capability, your mortars (destroying or even capturing them to turn against you), your food supplies, your workshops, depending on whatever the point of the raid is (asset denial, crippling production, grabbing whatever phat lewt they can find, killing as many of your colonists as possible, etc).

That? That would be smart AI.

[jfoytek]

Originally posted by di eshor ribly:

Originally posted by jfoytek:

If they built a siege engine outside of my wall and used it to breach the wall that would be awesome and I would be all for it....

If they towed a siege engine and slowly rolled it up to my wall that would be cool too...

But walking up with a magic Axe and breaking the wall in seconds is NOT AWESOME... Its down right stupidity....

So, hear me out here, I speak from the experience as an army combat engineer. Breaching things with explosives (and arming/disarming landmines!) was my job. You'd be surprised how easy it is to break through a wall or door or ceiling.

It was easier for Tynan to make a "magical breaching axe" than attempt to make a shaped c4 charge or something is my guess here. Personally I'm a big fan of detonation cord wrapped around an IV bag full of water. Big wet mess, absolutely destroyed lock or hinges, not a lot of structural collateral damage. I'm a skinny dude, and I personally have torn a wall open with a real world breaching axe and climbed through the hole in less than five minutes. Getting shot at is a hell of a motivator.

He could have buffed the current siege weapons in the game... you know... mortars? But then people would be complaining even more about the inhumanly devastating mortar barrages.

Just run a sniper or something outside to take potshots at the sapper or giggle and set up a cluster of IED traps on the other side of the walls they're digging through. Give them a proper welcome for installing your new hallway.

All that is fine if you like to play high tech.... I only enable Tribals... And disable high tech stuff but yet they have magic breaching axe's.... How exactly would a tribal bow and arrow weilding nudist race have C4???

[di eshor ribly]

Originally posted by jfoytek:

Originally posted by di eshor ribly:

So, hear me out here, I speak from the experience as an army combat engineer. Breaching things with explosives (and arming/disarming landmines!) was my job. You'd be surprised how easy it is to break through a wall or door or ceiling.

It was easier for Tynan to make a "magical breaching axe" than attempt to make a shaped c4 charge or something is my guess here. Personally I'm a big fan of detonation cord wrapped around an IV bag full of water. Big wet mess, absolutely destroyed lock or hinges, not a lot of structural collateral damage. I'm a skinny dude, and I personally have torn a wall open with a real world breaching axe and climbed through the hole in less than five minutes. Getting shot at is a hell of a motivator.

He could have buffed the current siege weapons in the game... you know... mortars? But then people would be complaining even more about the inhumanly devastating mortar barrages.

Just run a sniper or something outside to take potshots at the sapper or giggle and set up a cluster of IED traps on the other side of the walls they're digging through. Give them a proper welcome for installing your new hallway.

All that is fine if you like to play high tech.... I only enable Tribals... And disable high tech stuff but yet they have magic breaching axe's.... How exactly would a tribal bow and arrow weilding nudist race have C4???

Black powder explosives, tar and pitch, catapults. The same way our tribal bow and arrow wielding nudist ancestors used to do it.

Fire is historically our oldest siege weapon. Even with "fireproof" stone walls they'd just use flaming arrows to set the interior on fire. Or dig their way through with this really high tech ancient device called hammers, axes, and shovels.

Edit: my point here is there's a reason old castles have embrasures, murder holes, and holes to drop flaming oil on people. Running up and hitting the walls or gates with stuff is breaching 101.

[jfoytek]

Originally posted by di eshor ribly:

Originally posted by jfoytek:

All that is fine if you like to play high tech.... I only enable Tribals... And disable high tech stuff but yet they have magic breaching axe's.... How exactly would a tribal bow and arrow weilding nudist race have C4???

Black powder explosives, tar and pitch, catapults. The same way our tribal bow and arrow wielding nudist ancestors used to do it.

Fire is historically our oldest siege weapon. Even with "fireproof" stone walls they'd just use flaming arrows to set the interior on fire. Or dig their way through with this really high tech ancient device called hammers, axes, and shovels.

Again I have said many times I would be great with them setting up a siege camp and building a catapult... but they are not using one they are using a magic axe...

I would be fine with them standing their with a bow drill trying to start an ember so they could attach it to their torch and then beat thru my WOODEN wall with it... but not my masonry wall with it lol.....

Again magic axe is silly....

[Hykal]

They're not using a magic axe, they're using a breaching tool. Tribals or pirates aren't ignorant idiots, they know how walls work.

Like, you do realise you don't need a catapult to go through a wall, right?

[di eshor ribly]

I'd be perfectly fine with them having to build a battering ram or something myself, but you have to take into account the modding capabilities of this game too. Suppose you make a 3x3 battering ram (vanilla security expanded's artillery is that size for reference.)... great. How is that going to get over my 2-wide moat bridge as the only entrance to my terraformed fortress base? An entire breaching mechanic beaten by water.

Breaching axe: in and dead without you the player having to actually wait out a melee siege. The raiding NPC's would give up long before they had any chance of actually getting to you.

Really, I took breaching seriously enough in the army... you don't have to overthink it so much in this game.

[Dreagon]

It should definitely be harder if not impossible for a random pawn with a knife or even armed with frag grenades to break down a meter thick wall in seconds. I understand the need to deal with things like killboxes but giving every other raid the ability to just ignore walls isn't the answer. Maybe a better scaling of raids could be the answer. If the fight is more fair in numbers/quality the need for a killbox also disappears. Sure, you could still do it but a defence not based on a killbox becomes a lot more effective and fun.

[ZS Maeklos]

The easiest way to do it would be to buff pickaxe damage vs. structures rather than introduce breaching tools. And RPGs for later factions. The Red Horse mods do RPGs (as well as other shoulder-fired weapons) really well. Or heck, just force the enemies to intelligently use those missile launchers they bring. Tribal/medieval raids could have guys with picks run up and start hacking at your walls while the rest of the raid protects them - maybe even using the same mechanics as a siege where they bring cloth/wood with them to build sand bags or barricades. And later tech raids could simply stand back and blow holes in your walls with rockets.

[gachi is manly]

Originally posted by Dreagon:

Sure, you could still do it but a defence not based on a killbox becomes a lot more effective and fun.

...Which is exactly why raids that avoid killboxes are fun? They make you not rely so heavily on a killbox to begin with since enemies can circumvent it.

If they just make the raids smaller but keep killboxes effective, that's not exactly incentive to not do a killbox. It just makes it even more effective even if it becomes less necessary.

Although I'm playing devils advocate a bit there. I do think breach axes destroy walls a bit too fast and could be adjusted to do it slower while still being a big threat.

[ZS Maeklos]

I think the core problem stems from the fact that raids are simply human wave attacks. I'll point up a few posts to what I said about how a 'smart' AI raid would look. A lot of other games have intelligent AI. AI that will try to pin you down while other elements flank you, or simply pin you down so the rest of the force can proceed to their main objective.

Rimworld AI doesn't do that. No matter what new "raid insertion" method comes out - sappers, drop pods, breachers - it always devolves to the same thing: the enemies throw themselves mindlessly at you until they break or they overwhelm you.

My prediction for next anti-killbox raid: mole machines. Like drop pods, but instead of single pawns from each pawn, a mole machine can carry a dozen or more.

[Hykal]

There's no need for 'pickaxe' buff because you can already blow open walls with swords and gunfire. And without breach axes, guess what, sappers still have grenades.

If the AI was smarter then players would complain they'd be too hard. As combat heavy RimWorld can be, its first and foremost a story generator, enemies exist to tell interesting stories, they're not Total War armies or XCOM aliens.

[di eshor ribly]

Originally posted by ZS Maeklos:

My prediction for next anti-killbox raid: mole machines. Like drop pods, but instead of single pawns from each pawn, a mole machine can carry a dozen or more.

Mountain bases beware.

Bob: Hey, what's that rumbl -
*mole machine smashes through the floor, the hatch opens, a heavy cybernetically augmented man with a drill arm steps out*
Man: Behold your doom, for I am the Underminer!
Randy Random: Hey, I heard you like deep drill infestations... so... have fun with this.
Underminer: Where did all these blasted bugs come from?! ARRRGH!

[Dreagon]

Originally posted by gachi is manly:

Originally posted by Dreagon:

Sure, you could still do it but a defence not based on a killbox becomes a lot more effective and fun.

...Which is exactly why raids that avoid killboxes are fun? They make you not rely so heavily on a killbox to begin with since enemies can circumvent it.

If they just make the raids smaller but keep killboxes effective, that's not exactly incentive to not do a killbox. It just makes it even more effective even if it becomes less necessary.

Although I'm playing devils advocate a bit there. I do think breach axes destroy walls a bit too fast and could be adjusted to do it slower while still being a big threat.

You'll never be able to stop people from cheesing a game if they want to do it. But I'm someone who likes to avoid it if I can. But if my 6-7 pawns with relatively poor equipment get attacked by twice their number with equivalent equipment I will resort to it. But if raids would be similar in size with the same or maybe even slightly superior equipment I would more than likely end up making more, but weaker defensive positions surrounding my base instead of one big killbox.

[Jirae Patrick]

The easiest solution to the non-fun fake difficulty in this game is just to savescum. Make two autosaves per day and when you get one of these asinine events where the enemies somehow know the exact layout of your entire base and everything in it, you can just try to have it generate something more interesting. It's not AI, it's programmed behavior y'all.

[jfoytek]

Originally posted by Hykal:

They're not using a magic axe, they're using a breaching tool. Tribals or pirates aren't ignorant idiots, they know how walls work.

Like, you do realise you don't need a catapult to go through a wall, right?

You know their are a ton of Very Old crumbling Castles left in europe but I will still safely wager that even in their condition you would never be able to get thru one of those walls with a damned AXE....