How do you effectively supply non-laser defense perimeter

[KAA]

Hi there!
I saw related topics related to non-laser defense but did not find suitable answer to this particular question.

This topic is a hot one having big army on both sides - who defend laser turrets and who vote against them.
For me, laser turrets are the perfect weapon : do not require supply, easy to setup/move, one-shot everyone if upgraded appropriately, maximum distance,after space science packs receiving they are really so perfect that 2 lines of those turrets and 2 lines of walls make a perfect defense that even does not require repairing. (maybe once in 100 years)

So, I started a new map with a rule of non-using laser turret defense to make things more challenging. Also I play with aliens settings set hard so I'm attaching screenshot of how my map looks like after about 60 hours.

Also example of defense line is attached, it's a combination of usual turrets and flamethrowers. Supply is done by inserting "supply points" ti the perimeter, filling it with ammo, oil, repair, and so on. To re-supply the "supply points" I use robots for the base perimeter, and use "war supply train" for remote outposts.

Remote outpost defense is blueprinted by me, easy to setup and reliable - supply train does a good job. So it does not concern me.

The issue is with a main base. I need to expand now.

I can blueprint walls and turrets and "move" them after clearing the area, but having a big area covered with non-laser defense brings one big question:
How to effectively supply all defense perimeter with oil and ammo?

1) Belts do their job but extremely long distances require periodically inserted "supply points" otherwise ammo and OIL will flow to the distant sections too long I believe.
2) Roboports can be used to supply "supply points" with ammo, repair stuff and oil barrels, but not on such huge distances as I think. So, one independent Robots network should exist for one "Supply point" as i believe. Or do you see other options?
3) Because of the above, we have to supply these independent Robot network sections with trains. Trains are good at this but:
- I have to build and rebuild a lot of supply stations every time I want to expand, takes a lot of time, also a lot of chest getting deconstructed while expanding will make a mess.
- Train system will become total mess, the only way is to do huuuuge perimeter having rails running along the walls. which again will take a lot of time. Every corner will be complicated as hell in such perimeter. (laser turrets here are good as hell and simplify things dramatically here)
- Defense section that I will be building while expand will be defenseless until complete and war supply train will arrive which is too long period of time. How to handle it if pollution level will trigger aliens even if I clear their nearest bases? Surround by temporary laser turrets? Sounds like cheating if I play not using them.

As for temporary clearing alien bases I have no limitations. Already have MK II, shields, combat robots, rockets, uranium ammo, tank with shells, all this in sufficient amount so ready to war.

I will be glad to see the solutions you have or take any advises.

Screenshot 2018-06-13_17-39-58.png (1.43 MiB) Viewed 16289 times

Screenshot 2018-06-13_16-50-09.png (409.61 KiB) Viewed 16289 times

[herkalurk]

Your map seems very sparse on oil spots. In my map I try to find at least 1 place to put an oil pump nearish by. I setup 4 tanks and get it started pumping oil early. No need to bring oil in. Yes, there is a damage bonus for light oil, but it's simpler to just use the crude oil near where I am than to transport in refined light oil.

[KAA]

It's a Railway game preset so I expected such oil effect. Also I'm not looking for easy solution so I like the challenge of barrels logistic that's why what you say is not a problem for me.
Also production is easy modified for crude oil.

What concerns me more is that some oil gets removed when moving defense perimeter (because of pipes), deconstructed oil chest hard to manage, and in general, setup of defense without flamethrowers is much easier and still can defend well. So there are a set of reasons for not using flamethrowers to defend main base, especially with upgraded turrets.
But on the other side I'd like to have both because flamethrowers are great against big alien groups and they work really beautiful and I like just to watch them do their job )))

[quyxkh]

Automated defenses are for keeping clean territory clean, not for holding off endless hordes. The bugs are fleas, if they're swarming you're very far behind the eight ball. You don't need oil. Post your save?

[herkalurk]

Also, just noticed this on your first picture, why is your door for your train so wide? Trains only take up 2 spaces....that door has like 6 spaces extra to the right at least. Stone walls are cheaper than larger doors.

[Hiladdar]

Initially, I set up turrets, then add in flame throwers. I try to set up sectors, to be somewhat autonomous. I try to keep about 20-25 flame turrets per sector, with it's own oil tank, The turrets are there to be a back up and as biter bait for the flame turrets. If they are destroyed, so what, they are cheep and easy to replace. I do keep an eye on flame turrets taking damage since one destroyed flame turret can create a week spot or rally cripple a defense. The other thing I found useful is walking the perimeter to fix walls turrets and rearm turrets, as well as replace destroyed ones. Fueling the flame turrets, I usually find a secondary oil reserve and pump oil out of there. No refining needed, so much simpler then using heavy or light oil. In terms of wall, I start out with single line, then go to double, then add in dragon teeth as resources become available and needed in a specific sector

The other thing I found useful is to keep expanding the base, even if the real estate will not be needed for a long time. The key trigger for base extnsion, is pollution is hitting a biter next triggering chain attacks in a sector.

Once power generation is no longer an issue, I switch the flame turrets to lasers.

Hiladdar

[SuicideJunkie]

Artillery is the king of the battlefield.

1) Put a line of defense turrets at the edge of your artillery's autofire range.
2) Then, manually target artillery further out, and ONLY kill the spawners. Aim carefully, and leave the worms alive.
3) Profit. (Turrets no longer need resupply.)

Turrets will kill the occasional biters trying to start new bases inside your artillery auto range, and there will be no room for them to build spawners that can see your smog outside that range since the terrain is filled with worms instead.

[herkalurk]

Artillery is the king of the battlefield.

1) Put a line of defense turrets at the edge of your artillery's autofire range.
2) Then, manually target artillery further out, and ONLY kill the spawners. Aim carefully, and leave the worms alive.
3) Profit. (Turrets no longer need resupply.)

Turrets will kill the occasional biters trying to start new bases inside your artillery auto range, and there will be no room for them to build spawners that can see your smog outside that range since the terrain is filled with worms instead.

You really don't need to put turrets that far out. The biters will try to go back to the origin of the artillery fire, so they will come to you. I say let them come.

[SuicideJunkie]

The turrets aren't really for fending off the artillery aggro, although they will do that during step 2.

The turrets are for preventing any new bases from being built, which means no biters being spawned and no further artillery shots required after step 2 is complete.
Your turrets will only need a handful of bullets to fend off the occasional wandering cluster of about 10 pioneer biters, only one or two of which will be behemoths. Hand-filling the border turrets will be practical at that point, since a single stack of ammo will last for weeks.

[herkalurk]

The turrets aren't really for fending off the artillery aggro, although they will do that during step 2.

The turrets are for preventing any new bases from being built, which means no biters being spawned and no further artillery shots required after step 2 is complete.
Your turrets will only need a handful of bullets to fend off the occasional wandering cluster of about 10 pioneer biters, only one or two of which will be behemoths. Hand-filling the border turrets will be practical at that point, since a single stack of ammo will last for weeks.

This is why I use the train instead of fixed turrets. I have an artillery train go to 6 sites around the map, wait for a minute to see if anything new is in range and fire, then move on. Most often it comes back using less than 10 shells. I only have 4 static artillery turrets at the main production facility where the shells are made. You don't need to send out restocking trains since the train that has the stock also shoots.

[Tricorius]

What concerns me more is that some oil gets removed when moving defense perimeter (because of pipes), deconstructed oil chest hard to manage, and in general, setup of defense without flamethrowers is much easier and still can defend well. So there are a set of reasons for not using flamethrowers to defend main base, especially with upgraded turrets.
But on the other side I'd like to have both because flamethrowers are great against big alien groups and they work really beautiful and I like just to watch them do their job )))

Sorry for necro-ing a thread, but I've been playing around with my ideal defensive walls for base and outpost lately.

I also enjoy the logistics "challenge" of maintaining various military resupply goals. I also like lighting bugs on fire. :: shrug ::

What I do for teardown is reverse the light oil system. (I basically make my "unbareling" system back into a "barreling" system to suck the light oil back out of the pipes. In my case I simply set the unbareling assemblers to barreling assemblers and reverse the empty and full inserters so that it refills the small buffer. I also have a "cleanup" mode with a "trash" train--I call them "RAC" trains because I enjoy Killjoys and it entertains me--which essentially comes and collects all the junk remaining from an outpost I'm tearing down and sends it back to base. The "RAC" trains head into a depot with a bunch of active provider chests. The random cargo gets resorted via bots. The light oil barrels end up back "in the system" and ready to be reloaded onto the military resupply trains.)

Incidentally, if I'm walling in a *huge* area, like a very large mid-game base (I tend to separate into modular rail systems after I have basic space science and eventually tear down my original single rocket silo base), I typically break the wall into segments which have isolated roboport networks and rail resupply stops. The "resupply depot" is the first part of the segment. So I can build or demolish a segment pretty easily. If I'm building a new one, I plop down the blueprints for the resupply depot, bring the train in, let it drop the replication portion of the segment down, then start laying the expansion blueprints for as long as I want the wall segment (I generally go between 5 - 20 roboports, depending on how much resistance will be near the wall segment). To rip it up, I reverse everything (as above): suck the oil out and rebarrel it, deconstruct all the stuff, and setup the RAC system to recycle everything.

This process is clean and easy because I have standard construction blueprints which kickstart a construction bot network. It lays down a construction/resupply depot which accepts my construction train. The construction train contains roboports, construction, and logistics bots. It contains circuitry to load an initial set of construction and logistics bots into the system (connected directly to the main roboport for the segment) and self-feeds.

I either manually lay that initial portion down to prime the construction segment. OR if I'm in late-game and doing my automated expansion, I have blueprints to lay down defended roboport enabled train lines so that the previous rail segment can build the next one, and the last one of those can build the kickstart blueprint for the new construction project. (The system still has some imperfections which I'm trying to work out. I want to get it fully autonomous in vanilla.)

I'll try to post some screenshots of the process during the holidays.

[KAA]

Thank you very much for your comment!
I did a little bit of thinking and saw that it's very easy to convert supply station to a fold up station.
So all supplies and liquids can be transferred back to base into the buffer and then - transferred to new outpost.

This automates the process a lot and makes it a lot more pleasant. Also, this requires nicely planned modules of the perimeter defense,
that is what I wanted to do long time ago and now I have a reason to do it and know what these modules need to be optimized for.

Thanks again!