Edge of winnability settings

Post all other topics which do not belong to any other category.
Post Reply
Stakhanov
Inserter
Inserter
Posts: 27
Joined: Tue Jan 22, 2019 9:23 am
Contact:

Edge of winnability settings

Post by Stakhanov »

Since the biter pathing change , large biter swarms seem much more threatening. As a result it's easy to make them appear too early to stand a chance at winning or progressing in the game. But I think I found a sweet spot that allows desperate last stands stretching on for quite a while : deathworld settings , 20% pollution absorption , 20% biter cost , 25% pollution diffusion. Possibly preferable to have a green terrain start with some trees to survive until turrets (first tech to unlock obviously)

I tested this in coop , with a few people to help rebuild , fight and keep turrets stocked on all fronts , and it was a constant struggle for survival. Ammo was always scarce , the more iron electric drills we placed , the bigger the enemy waves. We kept rebuilding and more or less held our ground until medium biters showed up.

I'd like to know if someone else can manage to progress or even win with such settings. Presumably the outcome would be secured once flamethrower defenses are in place.
Last edited by Stakhanov on Sat Dec 28, 2019 7:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Durentis
Fast Inserter
Fast Inserter
Posts: 105
Joined: Mon Jun 27, 2016 3:55 pm
Contact:

Re: Edge of winnability settings

Post by Durentis »

I posted a Marathon Death World challenge a while back.

I think the main solution for any difficult death world is realizing that you don't have to stay put. You can pick up your drills and furnaces and/or whatever else is making significant pollution and simply relocate. This has the effect of starting a new pollution cloud and allowing the other(s) a chance to dissipate. Careful management of this, tedious as it may be, and you'll never anger the native population.

I would suggest that if you're doing this in a multiplayer setting, spreading out but combining resources for research just makes it easier.

Also.. wearing decent armour, swinging your trusty axe, and eating stacks of fish can clear some surprisingly large biter camps. Just don't kill too many or the ones you do anger will be stronger much sooner than you're ready for.

Death world starts really are all about fishing.

Honktown
Smart Inserter
Smart Inserter
Posts: 1025
Joined: Thu Oct 03, 2019 7:10 am
Contact:

Re: Edge of winnability settings

Post by Honktown »

I'm not sure if I'd personally go back to a vanilla game, but I have some perspective on this:

1) multiple players make things waaaaay easier. Even two, if they have a synergistic play style (one person does mining/power/oil infrastructure more, the other does more with the logistics/micro pathing)

2) the normal enemy behavior is not conducive to "on the edge" winning. If you get overwhelmed once, you're probably dead, and it's a very fine line between "when they can touch turrets" to "everything will be dead the next wave or two" or "you get some improvement and you've beaten them the rest of the game".

My most difficult games were obviously with higher enemy difficulty settings, but: smaller starting area, smaller amounts of resources, and more time spent in green science vs getting into blue. If you can get to automated blue science/flamethrower turrets, you'll probably be able to reach the rocket without much issue. In any game.

If you're in green science and/or don't have flamethrower turrets/lasers and you run low on resources, you can be screwed, because bullet ammunition takes a lot of resources proportional to the damage it does. The flamethrower does do good damage, but the ammo can be slow/difficult to produce, isn't worth much firing time, and has a small range. I haven't tried it since .17 where they changed it to only needing basic oil (no processing required).

Low space makes the logistics more difficult, and you can't use many solar panels to counter the pollution. Red chips are needed for efficiency modules, and if oil is difficult to get to, or you have a low supply, you have to choose between slightly improving your power/pollution situation, or advancing in science. Every single one of my games: "Dear Diary: it's day n, and I am low on red chips."

Resource difficulty would depend most on iron supply and oil distance. Even with the reduction in resources needed comparing .17 and .16, iron is still in massive demand, and is worse when you're using bullets. Even flamethrower ammo takes 5 steel per ammo. Oil is needed to progress and get away from bullets.

I got a bit upset they removed the "tool" slot in .17. I played with a mod and one of it's "hidden" features was an axe with ~34 damage. I used it to save a lot of ammo in a resource tight game, early on. Now there's no melee aspect to the game at all (it'd be nice to bring the slot back with a mod).

Some better gradation would be called for: incendiary ammo. Similar damage to normal bullets, but is fire-based so enemies resist it much less and can be used in turrets. May or may not have a secondary on-fire effect. Would be good for on foot combat between green and blue (maybe it could take coal or raw sulfur, so it's available without as much oil needed).

If enemies attacked and then went away AT ALL that'd go a looooong away to improving the hard line between winning and lose. A high "distraction" cooldown between when they get distracted and go back on target would help: they might first prioritize high-pollution targets like miners. If they met a turret or other distraction, they attacked that, and then waited a bit before continuing. If after miners they target power infrastructure, and then since those are normally the most polluting, AND it would turn off machines, they'd have no "reason" to attack the machines, which saves your logistics if you got overrun. After that they could "leave", because theres "nothing left to attack". There's also a style choice here: build miners/power deep for protection, and risk losing everything on the way, or use up some more space and resources keeping them separate, but have better odds of keeping things in-tact and recovering after an assault.

A "retreat" mechanic and different kinds of unit groups would also be nice: small groups of tough guys with a "leader" unit which is above-difficulty, but will probably be the last unit standing and if damaged enough, everybody runs. Differently sized groups of weak units. Even small spitters make quick work of turrets while turrets spend all their time on bullet-resistant melee guys, so a way to handle that would be nice.

Most of this post is about potential changes, not settings, I know. Unfortunately the enemy behaviors limit how much you can change the settings before you just run into the firm ways the game behaves.

I've been messing around with a mod because I like it for one, but it adds a cave surface. The cave doesn't let you run generators or labs, but it is significantly safer and full of resources, and there is a conduit to get power from the surface to underground. It could use a lot more changes before I get it to play how I'd like (above-ground is either too hard or too easy, and underground could use more variety and progress in the mod's theme).

@Durentis
I tried out two mods at the same time that crippled resources patches (unknown to me at the install). My problem was I could use higher-tier drills after "improving" the deposits, but then my pollution went off the scale. I had to spend a ton of time visiting single basic drills (because TWO would generate a large enough pollution cloud to draw biters), picking up the minimal plates to build and make some more science. This was back in .16, and my intermittent power supply for a long time was fuel blocks and solar. Solar would be enough to start the 0.5 oil/s jacks, which could get me a few fuel blocks, and during the day power would cut in and out, and at night everything would be off.

Higher enemy spread rates are probably one of the worst settings to turn up. Only about 1/10 times do I clear a group of enemies nesting, and it actually sticks. Normally I'll kill everything, and there'll be some stragglers running in to join the dead group... or the enemies will just nest, and nest, and nest, at the exact same spot, even if I've stood there for five minutes and nothing has come in. As soon as I walk away more start coming.

Acid spit is the worst damn damage source, I swear. I can often deal with one or two bigger biters in melee, but if there are spitters, your health just melts. Acid damage stacks, and sticks around a long time, AND slows you down, so death can be 10 seconds away and you know there's not a damn thing you can do about it.
I have mods! I guess!
Link

Molay
Fast Inserter
Fast Inserter
Posts: 175
Joined: Thu May 01, 2014 8:01 am
Contact:

Re: Edge of winnability settings

Post by Molay »

I did an AB deathworld with RSO, with 4x science cost and rampant (biters don6take the same path but find weaknesses, so you need full perimeterdefenses). This had me on the edge even after unlocking laser turrets, as energy kept being tight for about 30 hours. Expansion was extremely difficult, and you don't start with 2 of the 6 ressources; and no infinite ores. It got significantly easier once I got uranium going, which is fairly late in AB (and isn't directly mined from uranium patches but refined). The sheer amount of turrets could only then be up all the time, as solar was space limited due to biter density (note: select vanilla biter spawning in RSO). Before nuclear my factory was on a separate electrical grid and got disconnected during the night, so the batteries would last for my defenses. It was extremely satisfying though and remained a challenge all the way up to artillery. There's just so much to manage, and designing the factory in a space efficient manner takes lots of time (that you don't have). I went in without blueprint books ready, which I'd recommend. But let me tell you, getting that first artillery up was VERY satisfying.

Stakhanov
Inserter
Inserter
Posts: 27
Joined: Tue Jan 22, 2019 9:23 am
Contact:

Re: Edge of winnability settings

Post by Stakhanov »

Interesting , we did a default setting angel/bob/rampant/RSO coop run a while ago but defense was very easy thanks to plasma turrets. Did you remove artifact drops or disable bob's warfare ? Rampant biters did not seem to adapt to those plasma turrets (not that much could be done when they covered our entire base perimeter)

Molay
Fast Inserter
Fast Inserter
Posts: 175
Joined: Thu May 01, 2014 8:01 am
Contact:

Re: Edge of winnability settings

Post by Molay »

Yes I don't like the artifact drops, an d plasma turrets didn't exist when I played it! Though imo the important part is turning RSO bitter generation OFF (so it uses default gen) and go with high density as in deathworld. It makes you very space constrained which, at least in my case, severely limited me when it came to energy production. I'm not sure how much plasma turrets cost energy wise, I did a rather lighthearted play a few months ago and didn't pay much attention to their upkeep (though they were amazing in clearing bases). It's quite possibly significantly easier with plasma turrets come to think of it, as it should make expansion fairly easy in the mid game. If you don't use them to turret creep you may find that "edge of survivability" scenario though. Or if you play solo Haha ;)

Stakhanov
Inserter
Inserter
Posts: 27
Joined: Tue Jan 22, 2019 9:23 am
Contact:

Re: Edge of winnability settings

Post by Stakhanov »

Just launched a rocket after 30 hours in a (green start) deathworld with 40% pollution absorption , 30% biter cost and 25% pollution diffusion. The start was a mighty struggle as we spent the vast majority of our iron on ammo and turrets , then mass produced piercing ammo to go on the offensive and seize an iron / copper outpost. Medium biters were a major threat as they came in huge waves , but we sneaked in a single pumpjack that biters ignored for a long time - thus feeding flamethrower turrets that we started to install everywhere. From there it was mostly maintenance work , until bots also picked that task , allowing us to seize more resources with tanks. We did hurry to obtain depleted uranium ammo before behemoths , but as it turned out , well upgraded piercing ammo and flamers with funnel walls were enough to handle them with manageable turret losses. Artillery proved to be a luxury , as well.

It seems vanilla has an upper limit to difficulty scaling - game is mostly over once flamethrower turrets are operational. Games can only be lost prior to that , if big spitters show up before you can afford to replace turret losses. I'm now looking at mods that may change that fact , and keep up with upgrades - possibly even post game , too.

Post Reply

Return to “General discussion”