Starting out a 500 percent threat scale colony - any tips?

[Pinhead]

Im going to be playing on cassandra classic losing is fun crashlanded with 500 threat scale because i enjoy pain. The main thing i want to do is get high quality heavy smgs with flak armor to survive the raids. going to be using killboxes mostly for my defense and going to be accepting the deserter quest probably, so probably no psycast spam other than the first wimpy royal quest bestowing. any tips for surviving hell?

[Seal Enthusiast]

Bring some lube.

Other then that, you can preemptively watch some youtube vids of such challenges to get an idea of what you'll be up against. I hear that Adam Vs. Everything is a go-to for many people who are looking to challenge themselves.

[Pinhead]

Originally posted by Seal Enthusiast:

Bring some lube.

Other then that, you can preemptively watch some youtube vids of such challenges to get an idea of what you'll be up against. I hear that Adam Vs. Everything is a go-to for many people who are looking to challenge themselves.

I watched a lot of them already, and the main issue is mental breakdowns most of the time. I found a year round growing tile next to an outlander base, so i plan on trading drugs for plasteel to make tons of mechanoids to fight the huge waves. planning on making lancers and centipedes for base defense because i know how bad raids can get on this setup. gonna need that lube though...

[Steelfleece]

Originally posted by Seal Enthusiast:

Bring some lube.

Other then that, you can preemptively watch some youtube vids of such challenges to get an idea of what you'll be up against. I hear that Adam Vs. Everything is a go-to for many people who are looking to challenge themselves.

Plenty of lube. Colony is mostly colon. And in this case, that colony should be prepared to be penetrated hard and repeatedly.

Seriously though, don't get too attached to colonists, may wind up with a high turnover. Don't get too attached to the colony either, be ready to cut and run with what colonists you can if things get too hairy.

[Veylox]

Build killboxes, and build the most disgusting of them. The game will be extremely unfair to you with raids way bigger than you can handle, and doesn't expect you to win any fight without dirty tricks. You can try and control wealth, by simply not letting your pawns work on anything except the minimum food needed, the minimum base defense needed, and research. That way you can rush whatever armor you need before the really brutal raids hit, and then you push whatever wealth you need. Custom ideologies can go a long way. On 500% I usually go for a disgusting killbox that combines a double singularity set-up with a melee killbox towards the entrance. The enemy gets crippled by melees and mechs walking in, and ranged pawns finish them off once they're slowed. You can build a burnbox on the side to alleviate some of the pressure in case you get really bad raids back to back. Main issue will be mood going down the drain if raids take too long, I usually have at least beer and psychic tea always ready, I even have colonists set to carry them but for some reason half of them forget.

Obviously refuse any event you don't need to take on, you can ignore manhunters completely, and some of the mechanoid clusters as long as they don't come with an annoying building. If they come with mortars, you can roof the top of the mortar while they sleep and it won't ever try to fire. Let the next batch of raiders deal with the mechanoids.

To get good armor human primacy is usually nice, and if you're confident you won't get shredded by a raid before you can trade the wealth, crafting huge batches of yayo (or flake ? the x4 one) and trading with other settlements will get you all the psychic lances or even high-end armors you need, and I usually just buy steel and components too, since most methods of getting them are lame once you stripped your own map

When it comes to mood in general, you can't really afford to go cheap (I know Adam has really ugly colonies with barracks and stuff and encounters no mood issue but I never quite figured out how he does it, maybe it's because he plays a lot of pain is virtue)

If I don't have extremely impressive rec/dining room, huge comfort, fine tiled bedrooms to push to decent / slightly impressive, + drugs on the side set to only take once the mental break threshold is reached, I usually can't keep up. I do play royals though, and that combined with leaders/priests leads to mood debuffs down the line.


Once you covered regular raids, you need to figure out what type of other raid can kill you and have something ready against it. Usually involves building mortars, buying psychic lances, and if there's any type of raid you know you can't kill unless luck is involved, keep an orbital beam, an aero strike or any busted weapon of mass destruction to deal with this threat and this threat only. Drugs can also be used as gifts to build up faction relationships and call them for help

[GreedRecycler]

I heavily recommend the singularity killbox. It is a bit slow as enemies funnel into it one at a time. But it is the most efficient way to funnel enemies into a killbox where your colonists can shoot them, but they can't shoot you

[ichifish]

I play on 500% a lot, usually without killboxes until ship launch, but with pause, micro, pick up and haul, and every psycast I can get. On the other hand I don't rely on most of the OP hacks like cannibalism, indoor flowers, meat beacons, broken killboxes, or sacrificing pawns. I do bust ancient dangers and start second colonies.

Here's what I do:
1. expect to lose runs to rng (the game's or your own)
2. small is beautiful
Keep the colony small in size and wealth. You should still generate wealth (and skill up pawns while doing it), but trade everything immediately and invest it get-out-of-jail-free cards like psycasts, shock, and insanity lances. You don't have to go all dirt floors and mud huts, but you need to be very careful until you have all of the core research done and a raid-busting psycaster. Sometimes it takes me 3-4 years before I break 50K. Don't recruit unless you have a very specific need or a perfect pawn. Banish joins who aren't up to snuff.

3. Crafters for the win
Get your crafters leveled up as fast as possible. You don't need drugs other than tea to support your economy as long as your crafters are making apparel 24-7.

4. Luci and Go Juice
As soon as you get to 10 luci put someone on it. Then put another pawn on when you have 20 in your stockpile. Keep going. Sometimes you end up losing a run because of it, but most times it's what takes you over the top. Get good at managing it, especially if you've got caravanners on it. It's an investment: the sooner you start the more payoff you get. This necessitates danger-diving, so get good at that. Take advantage of go-juice until you get burned, swear you won't do that again, then forget and do it again. God I love go-juice.

5. Psycasting
I usually play tribal for the psycasters ability (caravan foraging is a nice bonus since you're on the road all the time). Get every psycast, but especially stun, vertigo pulse, skip, invisibility, and the berserks. By the time you go over the 50-60K limit you should have someone ready for the full space-wizard: every cast you need, staff, robe or locust armor, and masterwork shield belt. Get the gear as soon as you're ready to raise your wealth.

6. Caravan / Trade
Get someone on the road all the time (I play on medium-crowded maps and locate on a road near trade partners). It's quite safe if you have just one pawn and not too much wealth. I ally everyone possible, which generates lots of traders on the base and has the side bonus of calling in help.

7. Biphasic schedule for mood
You lose productivity, but time is on your side as long as you're keeping wealth low, so don't sweat it too much. Make sure your base is as compact as possible, though, and if you have pawns who walk a lot you might want to take them off it (and note that animal handlers can't work at night). Other than that you need comfy beds, good meals, tea, and an easy-going attitude towards projects.

8. Ranching
The raw numbers tell us drugs are more profitable, but the goal isn't to make money the fastest way, it's to make money the smartest way. Sit your crafter down on a comfy chair in a temperature controlled space with a pile of alpaca wool and she'll never break. Drug fields don't provide the side bonuses that ranching does: meat for your fine and lux meals and animals to caravan and sell. Nothing like a freezer full of meat and a leveled-up crafter. Milk and eggs are good for fine/lux meals as well. Don't waste time hunting everything on the map, but since ranching will level up your handler, tame valuable animals to sell. Don't let ranching get out of hand, though.

9. Ancient dangers / second colonies
Danger diving is a great revenue stream and a chance to pick up good pawns in addition to weapons and lucy, especially after your wealth goes beyond 75K and you can fully deck out a looter. I use a mix of drive-by-looting (1 solo super-fast pawn with psycasts, high melee, shield best and a persona weapon) to scout and grab the high-value stuff and followed by the occasional short-term expedition if there's good mining.

10. Tactics / micro
You've gotta love this part of the game.

[Pinhead]

UPDATE: everyone died during an empire raid and now my pizza lover, gnugfur(hes my favorite colonist) had to bury his 2 girlfriends and the man in black before starving to death on the floor lmao. gonna try again tho, thanks for the tips guys

[Mr. Do Everything]

A base designed as a fortress is superior. Enough space inside to farm what you need and rooms and defensive fortifications on the outer edges is a good way to stay alive.

[Monkey Magic]

Regarding Ancient Dangers:

Be sure to exploit trader caravans (preferably with decent tech) as a meatshield between you and the threats within:

1: Take note the positions of Ancient Dangers on the tile.
2: Wait for a caravan to arrive, immediately check the spawn location.
3: Send a pawn with a long range weapon to an Ancient Danger.
4. Deconstruct a promising wall tile.
5. Immediately switch to war mode, and fire at any casket in range.
6. Run away, and hide amongst the caravan.

If caskets contain active Ancients, they will burst forth, and fight any mobs in the area. If you are unlucky, you may take a shot from a guardin mob, or a risen ancient as your pawn flees, but most of the time they will fight each other. The winners (usually the Ancients) will pursue your pawn, and the caravan guards will fight in your defense.

Any fallen guards lose their faction affiliation (abandoned) so their gear becomes available as free loot. The caravan will typically win against the ancients (who are suffering from Cryptosleep sickness) so all the Ancient's gear will also become free loot.

Please note: If the caravan has any members carrying incendiary weapons, you can either;

a - ♥♥♥♥♥ mode: hold off on the plan until a more suitable caravan arrives.
b - Gambler mode: position your pawns to take down/out the offending guard before they set everything on fire (see below).
c - Firefighter mode: run in around behind, and put out fires early (see below)

It is possible to start fire-fighting during the combat (as the combatants will be focuses on each other) but it is easier to just take them out beforehand. Attempting to pre-emptively fire on the offending guard, or using melee will instantly make the faction hostile to you, so don't do this. lol

You will get a few free shots while the caravan is in combat, which will be considered "accidental friendly fire" where you will either lose no rep with the faction, or lose a small amount of rep with the faction for each ranged hit. In this way, you can incapacitate/kill the offending guard before they burn the world to ashes.

This should give your colony a nice boost in decent tech weaponry, and other loots.

[Laurie]

If you're using the Combat Extended mod, losing is fun 500% is normal so just continue playing as you were.