Gun turrets worth it?

[Clam Slamwich]

Does the storyteller still increase the difficulty once you start placing turrets down? Looked online and I keep finding old info from 2014/2015. I don't want to start placing turrets thinking it will keep me safer but end up making raids harder for no reason other than "You now have turrets, let me make your life harder".

[PuppetPal Mitch]

I might be wrong, but I think the strength of attacks is based on total colony value.

[Jager]

Raid difficulty scales as your colony keeps developing it's value as already stated. Don't be afraid of plopping some turrets here and there.

[Clam Slamwich]

ok thank you guys

[Emmote]

I don't feel that they're worth it. They're not very accurate, they die too easily and they can break down, basically becoming a component sink.

I just fight without them.

[WhiteFang]

I like to place turrets where they can aid my colonists, not stand alone against enemies. If you can get the enemies to stand still, aka shooting your colonists, then the turrets will be able to put in some nice shots. IMO, you're wasting a good opportunity if you don't place down turrets. The more guns, the better. They don't really add that much value to your colony.

[BoydofZINJ]

Turrets are static, but can be very useful. I find that if you create a large open space infront of the turrets... along paths the enemy are likely to travel (remove any cover - i.e. trees, rocks, etc) then turrets can turn a fight to a slaughter. I use turrets to supplement and help my guys. However, the AI will sometimes bypass obvious and spawn in weird locations and static turrets can not move.

[Freakycrafter]

the raid size scales with your colony value so basically place down as many turrets as you want

[Emmote]

It's been established that colony value itself is not the direct cause of enemy scaling. It takes into account many more factors, and turrets is certainly one of them.

[Swirler]

Originally posted by Emmote:

It's been established that colony value itself is not the direct cause of enemy scaling. It takes into account many more factors, and turrets is certainly one of them.

When I started a custom scenario with some nice firearms and one or two tech items and basic survival gear, near some nice steel deposits (also cut the manhunting animals, malaria events). The raids came thick and fast from quite early on.
Psychic drone ship dropping in to seal my fate.

Three or four seasons in I was dealing with 5-6 guys armed with sniper rifles/grenades/personal shields the lot.

My colony was reasonably advanced, had access to tons of gear left by the raiders. More steel than I knew what to do with.
That was with cassandra.


In comparison a randy random (same difficulty setting) with some worthless totally randomised tribe start I've been mostly floating along with only one or two raids 3-4 seasons in. (started with AI personality core and 95 artillery shells lol).
However in that game I'm dealing with manhunting animals on a regular basis.

It's the difference between night and day of those two playthroughs.

Manhunting animals, really seem to be the game's way of saying
"okay you're a crappy colony here's some drama but it shouldn't be too much for you to handle"

Disabling it seems to set the AI into "RAID EVERYTHING" mode, especially if your colony is quite strong.

[76561188078797539]

Turrets have one serious advantage - if placed near entrances or chokepoints leading into the base they will cause rushing raiders to engage rather than blitz into the middle of your colony.

Which makes it possible for your sharpshooter on the other edge of the map to actually get into action before everybody else is dead.

[DevHyfes]

I've been burning through exterior raids with a total of 2 turrets. Wall off your colony with doors in the walls so your guys can easily get in and out. Then leave one section open, with a 3/wide corridor that is as long as your turrets' range. Put two at the far end, staggered far enough apart that one exploding doesn't take the other. Put some traps in the corridor. Watch hilarity ensue.

Even if the AI brings some sharp shooters in, by the time the other guys charge in to the slaughter, the sharp shooters retreat.

[muzzy]

Originally posted by frizzen:

I might be wrong, but I think the strength of attacks is based on total colony value.

Verified. The default storytellers calculate "threat points" using a formula that involves wealth and colonist count.

First your total wealth is calculated. Items are counted in full market value and buildings at 50% value. Total wealth above 2000 will generate 11 threat points per 1000 wealth. If you're below 2000 total wealth, you get no threat points from wealth.

Every colonist you have contributes 40 threat points to the calculation.

Each difficult level has a "threat scale" that is now multiplied in. Free play raids come at 5% threat points only, Basebuilder at 35%, rough at 65%, challenge at 100%, extreme at 130%.

The first 5 raids are special easy raids. The very first raid always comes in at 35 threat points, as a sort of reminder about what's to come. The following raids are discounted -50%, -30%, -20% and -10% respectively.

To make the end-game less ridiculous, when raidpoints reach 1000 the portion above that value will be reduced by 50%, and points above 2000 reduced by another 50% for a total of 75% reduction. For example, 1800 threat points becomes 1400, while 2800 threat points becomes 1700.

There is also a ramp-up multiplier that slowly increases the difficulty over time. This starts when 21 days have passed and becomes a bit more aggressive after 42 days. Whenever your colonists are incapacitated or killed, it will ease up the ramp a little, especially if you have less than 10 colonists. If you have less than 3 colonists remaining, the difficulty ramp-up is reset completely whenever someone is incapacitated or dies. It will keep growing at full speed right away again though.

Turrets give market value of 425 to me, and being buildings only half of that counts. Thus they're worth ~2.34 threat points each. Roughly speaking, 17 extra turrets has about the same effect to difficulty as 1 extra colonist. Then again, if you didn't build the turrets, you'd have the raw materials left in your stockpile! Market value for components are 21 each, steel is 2 each. As it happens, the turrets cost 175 steel and 3 components, a total of 413 value which is counted in full since it's in your stockpile ... This amount of materials is worth ~4.5 threat points, significantly more than the ~2.34 points for built turrets.

tl;dr - building turrets actually REDUCES the difficulty of spawned raids because it transforms your wealth into buildings that count for less threat points :)

[Clam Slamwich]

Originally posted by muzzy:

Originally posted by frizzen:

I might be wrong, but I think the strength of attacks is based on total colony value.

Verified. The default storytellers calculate "threat points" using a formula that involves wealth and colonist count.

First your total wealth is calculated. Items are counted in full market value and buildings at 50% value. Total wealth above 2000 will generate 11 threat points per 1000 wealth. If you're below 2000 total wealth, you get no threat points from wealth.

Every colonist you have contributes 40 threat points to the calculation.

Each difficult level has a "threat scale" that is now multiplied in. Free play raids come at 5% threat points only, Basebuilder at 35%, rough at 65%, challenge at 100%, extreme at 130%.

The first 5 raids are special easy raids. The very first raid always comes in at 35 threat points, as a sort of reminder about what's to come. The following raids are discounted -50%, -30%, -20% and -10% respectively.

To make the end-game less ridiculous, when raidpoints reach 1000 the portion above that value will be reduced by 50%, and points above 2000 reduced by another 50% for a total of 75% reduction. For example, 1800 threat points becomes 1400, while 2800 threat points becomes 1700.

There is also a ramp-up multiplier that slowly increases the difficulty over time. This starts when 21 days have passed and becomes a bit more aggressive after 42 days. Whenever your colonists are incapacitated or killed, it will ease up the ramp a little, especially if you have less than 10 colonists. If you have less than 3 colonists remaining, the difficulty ramp-up is reset completely whenever someone is incapacitated or dies. It will keep growing at full speed right away again though.

Turrets give market value of 425 to me, and being buildings only half of that counts. Thus they're worth ~2.34 threat points each. Roughly speaking, 17 extra turrets has about the same effect to difficulty as 1 extra colonist. Then again, if you didn't build the turrets, you'd have the raw materials left in your stockpile! Market value for components are 21 each, steel is 2 each. As it happens, the turrets cost 175 steel and 3 components, a total of 413 value which is counted in full since it's in your stockpile ... This amount of materials is worth ~4.5 threat points, significantly more than the ~2.34 points for built turrets.

tl;dr - building turrets actually REDUCES the difficulty of spawned raids because it transforms your wealth into buildings that count for less threat points :)

Hot damn, this is what I was looking for! o-o Welp time to use up my 3k steel for a good cause!

[Grek]

me never use turrets/ mortars. 10 snipers doing their job well

[Dr. Lousy Shot]

Well i learned about this threat for raid the hard way, heh. I sorta cheated the vaule of items so i can pick up to where i failed last time instead of hours of rebuilding. When i made the vaule little too big. I got huge group of raider all heavy armored and carrying rpg, chaingun, and grenade launcher. I think it safe to say that i didn't make it lol. I had thought they were RNG based from on which AI storyteller you picked.