Ship part safe build radius

[MayoCulpa]

How close to a mechanoid ship part can you build something without it cracking open? I've had two in a row where I installed a spike trap close by the ship (3 tiles? maybe 4?) and the mechs popped out wayyyy before I was ready.

[Grimelord82]

It might be about double that distance. No longer can you wall them in and set fire to them!

[MayoCulpa]

You used to be able to? Uff da. I guess I'm grateful I started with 1.0 so I don't have old expectations to unlearn.

[martindirt]

Originally posted by Grimelord82:

It might be about double that distance. No longer can you wall them in and set fire to them!

Wall them around (at safe distance) and mortar them with incie shells. -> Never tried, but should work.

[M.K.]

Simple check...
If after building something, your "home zone" will cover the mech ship, you are too close.

Yes, its about 4 tiles in either vertical or horizontal

[MayoCulpa]

Absolutely, martindirt, that was my goal and I hope I can learn to do it correctly later. At least that was my goal the first time - second time the poison ship landed in one of my outer cornfields. -_-;; Did not want to bomb the food, yet also wanted to be speedy so poison didn't kill all the food.

Originally posted by M.K.:

Simple check...
If after building something, your "home zone" will cover the mech ship, you are too close.

Yes, its about 4 tiles in either vertical or horizontal

Ah that's probably what it is! Good, my future defensive structures will just give 'em a 5 tile radius.

I wonder if the home zone itself is what triggers the ship part, or the proximity of a player-built structure. Maybe next time I get a ship part I'll test it out.

I felt kinda salty on the second one cause I'd gone like a year without a colonist fatality. Time to start a new row in the graveyard, heh

[Preechr]

Wonder if it would make a difference if you turned off auto home-zone?

I usually draw them out to a prepared spot or back to some sort of defensible spot, separating them if possible. Run and Gun plus Simple Sidearms mods may make it too easy, I guess, but if you lay your traps away from the ship then trigger them with a long range weapon, they will give chase and your guy can lead them across the traps.

Use the time it takes for them to "wake up" to swap out to a shield belt or use a meat shield guy as a secondary to kite them. Alternately, you can have your meat shield draw most of them one way and pop back out with your sniper to aggro off one or two in another direction. Have the rest of your shooters camped out behind cover somewhere past the trapped area to finish them off.

................................................................trap.....trap.....trap.
.................................................trap...*ROCK**ROCK**ROCK*..trap............../c
..........................................trap..*ROCK**ROCK**ROCK**ROCK*..trap........./o
*SHIP*.................................*ROCK*ROCK*ROCK*ROCK**ROCK*............../v
.................................................*ROCK*ROCK*ROCK*ROCK*..trap............../e
.................................................trap...*ROCK*ROCK*..trap............................./r
.............................................................trap......trap

[MayoCulpa]

Pile of rocks with traps around it to get them to all path around separately does look like a great idea. I'd had the thought to build walls on either side and behind them, then just layer the forward area with spike traps and build a couple lines of sandbags so my colonists could fall back in waves towards my base while the grenadiers circled around behind. I had some great constructors and lots of stone blocks so it would have been doable.

But then practically the first spike trap I set down opened the ship. Bad times. Only managed to get out of that one without casualties cause I had one colonist with an SMG and another with a bolt action rifle taking turns popping in and out from behind partially-built walls to keep the centipede's targeting messed up.

One of the ship part defenses I did that went pretty well (except for me making a foolish mistake that cost me my brawler) was here. Ship landed in terrain that had a lot of great natural chokepoints, and the swamp was unaffected by the poison, so I could really take my time to build and plan.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1711483942

[Grimelord82]

Yeah, having one drop in your growing fields is super bad luck.
My current colony had a poison ship drop across one of the main entrances to the map, where I barely go. A raid showed up so I used a sniper to pop it after it'd been there half a year! That's my luck in general with them.

[MayoCulpa]

Hah! Now that's a great use for a poison ship if it's in an area you don't mind leaving it sit. I always feel silly when I struggle and get my colonists injured fighting mechanoids, only to have a raid or large caravan show up halfway through the battle. Like "oh thanks Cassandra, I could have just stayed indoors."

The growing field it landed in the middle of wasn't one of my mains thankfully. Only unlucky thing was this was right outside the main entrance to my base, with only a narrow creek and a wall separating it from one of my actual convertible greenhouses! I've got three growing areas walled in with separate generator clusters so I can switch 'em over to greenhouses in winter. The field the ship landed on was one of 5 or 6 patches of rich soil I just dropped a cornfield on, figuring that if half of them made it through outdoor growing season without getting burned by raiders or lightning it'd be a nice bonus.

[Preechr]

I love using ships and ancient dangers to mess up raiders... :D Would be awesome if the bad guys in a danger could be used against mechs from a ship lol

I'll usually have a guy severely weaken one brick on an ancient danger if its near a raider path, just in case I need to use that later on. Backfired on me more than once though... It's like the game knows what you are trying to do and sends lightning and fire to mess up your plans

[MayoCulpa]

I have yet to actually crack an ancient danger on one of my maps. (I don't count that one time I fled from an infestation and the bugs mined it open later.) Seems like it'd be doable midgame. About as many enemies as an infestation or ship part, and it's not killing plants or emitting a psychic drone so you have all the time in the world to set up. Maybe throw together some walls to funnel them into a trap field, lay down a few IEDs if you have those researched, have a constructor run in with a shield belt and deconstruct one wall segment.

I saw a guide in the wiki that recommends cracking the ancient danger super early in the hopes that it'll turn out to be bugs, so you can use it as a jelly farm. Seems a lot easier to just pick a map that has caves but it could be fun if it works.