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I decided to play my first 0.17 game on death world settings, so I've been experiencing a lot more biter aggression than I'm used to. Here are a few points about my experience so far (mostly about balance), for what they are worth:

The first map I generated, there was a biter base in the middle of the starting iron patch. That game was abandoned about 30s after it started.

The second map I generated (and the one I am playing) had what basically amounted to a puddle for water. A little farther south, there is a real body of water, but it had a biter base guarding it. It seems a bit cheesy to pump infinite water from a tiny puddle, but that's what I did.

Once I actually got a game started, I prioritized defensive capabilities. I had several bitter attacks while I was still trying to use burner miners, and eventually deployed some spare stone furnaces as "bait" so I would have time to run to which ever resource patch was under attack at the moment before the biters took out too much. I suffered losses several times, but nothing I couldn't fix.

Once I was able to build walls, I built walls. I used every cliff I could to my advantage as well. My initial space was rather constrained due to the need to defend the perimeter, so instead of a nice base with decent bus lines and things well planned out, I made a spaghetti factory.

My first oil patch was indeed near a biter base. Several of them, actually. I found a mostly safe path, ran a belt of ammo, put gun turrets along the way, etc. It took a lot of work on foot to clear the immediate area. Then I walled off the oil patch and installed flamethrower turrets as soon as I could. This worked well.

My starting copper patch seemed small, but it lasted longer than my starting iron. I was able to procure a second iron patch without much trouble. My second coal was also not a problem. Finding a second copper, however, was. I let several radars scan to their max range, and there was no additional copper. Eventually I built a tank, went out exploring, set up several solar powered radar installations beyond the range of my original radars, and let them run for a bit. Still no copper. I went exploring in the tank again, and finally found another patch that was almost entirely covered and surrounded with biters and was not going to be viable for me at that point. I explored some more, and finally found another copper patch, that also had multiple irons and a uranium nearby. It still took me an hour with the tank to clear biters before I could build there.

As I was approaching the need for a second oil patch, it was looking like it would be pretty difficult, but I was able to squeeze out artillery. Now my expansion speed is mostly defined by my production rate of artillery shells, the biters have been downgraded to a nuisance threat, and I have bots that fix the turrets and walls as necessary.

As for actual combat balance - combat on foot is still hard for me. The spitter slowdown and damage from puddles is annoying. Driving around in the tank is more fun, but it is still pretty easy to get wrecked if you don't pay attention. Something I don't like: when using the cannon on the tank, enemy bases that are out of range of the cannon still show a green target when you hover over them, and the shell will just fall short if you fire. I do not think the artillery is overpowered, but the huge step-change in combat capability vs. fighting on foot or with tanks is big. I would reduce this by increasing the effective range and/or power of the tank cannon and hand held rocket launcher.

Vxsote wrote: Thu Mar 07, 2019 11:11 pm The first map I generated, there was a biter base in the middle of the starting iron patch. That game was abandoned about 30s after it started.

The second map I generated (and the one I am playing) had what basically amounted to a puddle for water. A little farther south, there is a real body of water, but it had a biter base guarding it. It seems a bit cheesy to pump infinite water from a tiny puddle, but that's what I did.

Both of these sound like they're not supposed to happen. The new map generation is supposed to keep biter bases out of your starting area, and guarantee both water and relatively predictable amounts of the four starting resources (coal, stone, iron, and copper).

It might be different for death worlds, I don't play those. And most of the other stuff you went over here is "problems faced by much larger bases than I ever build."

As for actual combat balance - combat on foot is still hard for me.

Same. I am terrible at driving cars and tanks, though, so until I've got a lot more experience with that - combat on foot still turns out better for me. Insofar as it turns out well at all.

Do you still have a save or autosave of your first map ? the one with biter base on the starting iron patch ?

Koub wrote: Fri Mar 08, 2019 6:32 am Do you still have a save or autosave of your first map ? the one with biter base on the starting iron patch ?

(sorry for the slow reply) Unfortunately, I do not.

0.17 has much that is excellent. But I think it will all be seen through the perception filter of whether people like design or whether they like combat. The first will hate it and the second love it.

Me, I am ambivalent. After nearly 2000 hours my focus is still design, but I do foresee eventually moving towards combat. I think that let's me see the problem from both sides. That is what I currently play in what is mostly Railworld settings, so that I have some combat, but it is not the main thing I do.

From that perspective, I think there are three main things that need to happen if the game is to be enjoyable to all kinds of players:

1) Choosing settings to use in a New Game has to be easier and whatever settings we used on the last New Game need to carry over to the new one so that we can easily adjust them for the new one. This should work for each preset.

2) There should be more emphasis to teach new players how to adjust the New Game settings, as it is essential to enjoy the game.

3) if enemies are going to be so sensitive to pollution there must be better ways to control pollution, like the Biotech mod does. That way those that like to minimize combat will be able to, and those that enjoy combat will focus on that.

Besides a few servers and my own spoon run, i cant even remember when i last played with biters on.
I usually play heavy modded, focusing on production and big bases
My first unmodded 0.17 game was also a spoon run with a friend, converting it to a bigger base for mass prod 3 achievment. So far we are like 10% into that, ~2M circuits
The only thing we changed from normal game settings was the starting area (600% i think, i didn´t create it)
And for the sake of difficulty, you could argue that not playing alone helps.
I think expansion is also off, but i´d have to guess.
So take my experience with that in mind

We had enough time to research all non infinite military after the rocket was launched for the spoon, my friend even got the "research all tech" one, researching atomic bomb last

But for the first time in a few thousand hours, maybe the first time ever, so far i enjoyed killing nests with normal combat
I always thought its useless, almost always turned them off, unless i wanted to test some mods like Bob´s warfare

But for now im kind of surprised how easy it is with alternating weapons
I use an armor with i think 3 reactor, 4 shields and 3 legs. Could be more shields, swapping out the roboports.
Attack with spamming a few explosive rockets, flame down whats following me, gun down (red ammo) the remaining few, run in with rockets again, rinse and repeat
Im not using a tank, its too slow. Would only test it if my friend was driving, but he is busy in the base

Before all that, we had a few attacks here and there, pollution is spreading massivly over the 2 big lakes we have, not so far out from spawn (i feel like water absords some, but there are no trees at least)
There even were a few big (blue) ones attacking and the bases i clear now have about 30%ish blue. I think evolution is at about 50%
I have not looked at worm size yet.
The one thing im curious about: biters seem to be spawning a bit faster, when the first leave their spawners, following me after initial attack. But i could be wrong, i have almost no experience with that.

Meanwhile, the base is capable of producing a few arty shells a minute, and walled off on 2.5 sides, with tripple walls and dragon teeth and 3 different turrets, the normal ones soon will be supplied with uranium ammo and did not have a red ammo supply, ever.
But it feels like with all the non infinte research, flamethrowers and lasers are more than capable of holding back attacks for now.

So unless Behemoths and bigger worms will become a problem later, i think with our map setting and the fact that we are two, where one can really focus on building and one enjoying combat as much for a change, biters will not be a problem soon.
With more careful planning, researching (we had no plan whatsoever, both heavy modded players) and putting down more spread out turrets during base expansion in the mid game,
I think this is totally doable in solo play and smaller starting area.
I think military research should be prioritized for that. We only handcrafted a few grey ones for some bullet damage research (red/green/grey one) before the 1st rocket was launched
Of corse i will not test that
I think this will be my last vanilla base ever.
But it has been a change and definatly fun so far, and thats coming from someone not at all interested in biters being on at all.