Can someone help me figure out what happened here?

[TheNMan]

So out of nowhere (no raid, I didn't have one myself, I received no prompt about this being a special event) my base was struck by an orbital bombardment. One that hit a caravan and killed so many of them that it turned the faction hostile. I have no idea what caused it.

My best guess is that it was a terrorist attack added by Vanilla Expanded: Empire... In which case I'm going to have to turn off the terrorism factor if having a single yeoman in the colony prompts them to nuke the place and start a war. Has anyone else with the mod had this happen to them? Or does anyone else know of a mod that could've caused that to happen?

[Astasia]

That's not one of the listed terrorist attacks on the VFE Empire mod. That said, I don't have any other good explanation for you. If you had an orbital targeter in your base it's possible some mod caused a pawn to automatically use it somehow, or perhaps it was a misclick you didn't notice since colonists will IIRC automatically equip them when they find them if you don't adjust the default outfit settings.

[TheNMan]

Huh, weird. I was wondering if a terrorist randomly spawned with a modded weapon of some kind, but if that's not it... It was a mod faction too, maybe someone in their caravan was packing extreme heat and got spooked by something. Thanks!

[marcusaddamsson]

Was it your permit for a royal guy? There's an aerodrone (or something) strike that's kinda like a orbital bombard, just one rocket tho. I've seen that it's not that hard to accidentally click the power... but that's mostly on caravans. Shrug.

[TheNMan]

They were only a yeoman, I don't think they could've gotten an aerodrone, unless the mod changes a little more than I thought. It's certainly possible at least, I've got a lot of mods, maybe a couple overlapped once I got a royal. Thanks!

[Jirki88]

When you say "orbital bombardment", do you mean one massive explosion á la a nuke, or a rain of shots?

[TheNMan]

Originally posted by Jirki88:

When you say "orbital bombardment", do you mean one massive explosion á la a nuke, or a rain of shots?

A sky laser that holds on a single spot for a few seconds before stopping.

[marcusaddamsson]

Sounds like this:

https://rimworldwiki.com/wiki/Orbital_power_beam_targeter

I love those things!

[martindirt]

Possible:

One of the caravaneers had a Targeter eqipped.
A predator attacked one of their pack animals / member.
Caravaneer activated the targeter in the name to protect the caravan.

Dumb AI many times use frag granades, molotovs, flammers, etc AOE weapons against predators, killing and injuring their own members.

[TheNMan]

I think I remember there being a manhunter run in not long before the caravan arrived. I didn't finish it off because all my pawns were armed and capable of killing it easily. I think it attacked somewhat near where the caravan later arrived, so maybe it recovered a made a run at them, just to get blown to smithereens by a trigger happy pawn and his sky laser lol

Guess that'll teach me to leave a predator alive.

[marcusaddamsson]

Well... the very end of a manhunter event is kinda odd. The animals are still in 'manhunter' mode... but they've been told to move off the map (to end the event). So they don't actively seek conflict, and if they do get engaged (since they're still manhunters, they're still active threats) they mostly just run away. So all of that trues up...

By chance was it an Empire caravan? Those guys always seem to be armed to the teeth with really good biocoded weapons...

[Khan Boyzitbig of Mercia]

I know caravans can wipe themselves out by igniting anti-grain warheads and the like, they aren't able to use power beam targeters in vanilla but if a mod allows them to spawn with one equipped and use any abilities they have...

[marcusaddamsson]

Oh yea... one more bit. It totally was the left over manhunter that started all this... because it was already manhunting, and you already got the notification. So when the caravaneer engaged it, you wouldn't've gotten the normal 'revenge' msg that happens when a caravan is attacked by a normal animal that's hunting them for food.

[TheNMan]

The manhunter thing makes sense, would explain why there wasn't a notification for it. The only thing I don't get is the orbital bombardment. Because I think it was a VFE mod, the Roman one. Who I haven't encountered much, but would be surprised to hear if they packed orbital targeters. Unless there's a mod conflict that caused them to get their hands on one.

But I could be wrong, I do tend to think of them in my head as "the Roman Empire" instead of "Republics." So maybe it really was a Shattered Empire crew. It'd add up.

[Vaarelsauce]

I think it's the Aerodrone Bombardment event, not from VFE Empire, but actually VFE Deserters