River Raptors...

[justinfm]

Why can they break a fucking Gate... and why isnt anyone attacking them before they eat my plants....?

[Hatsune_Neko]

language please.

if your gunners are not attacking them when they attack the gate then that is a bug ( if you have turret gunners )
also your people are supposed to react when your crops start getting eaten, if they are not then that's a bug to.

if you can upload your savegame folder with the issues if you are having them as i listed above then please do.

[ShadowVision]

Hatsune_Neko i think his problem is not "bug-related", it seems more like a general question why Raptors are able to destroy a Metal-Gate and why they are not marked as an enemy before they eat the plants.

The Answer of the first Question is simple: Balancing. The game would be too easy if you can wall yourself off and everything behind the wall is safe.

The Answer of the second Question is a tricky one: Raptors are like a neutral faction, so as long as they don't attack your property/NPC's, they aren't marked as your enemies. Unfortunately this leads to the situation that they can safely pass your guarded (open) Gate and eat your plants.

I'm also not happy with this... In my old base i had 2 groups of Raptors visiting my base every day. If i wasn't aware of that and send my guards with the attack order first, they started to eat my plants and than they attacked my farmers because they wanted to protect the farms, even if they are set on passive (i hate this! ^^).

So what could be the solution to this? Make raptors as an enemy from the start? Nah, i don't think so. I may have another solution: If Raptors (or other animals) are on the way to your fields, they already have a order like: eat plants or attack gate. These orders combined with a little check if the target is player owned could already set the "enemy flag" for you, so your guards can attack them right at the gate. With this, Raptors in general are still neutral, but they won't pass your guards like "Oh Raptors want to visit our base? I don't care that they possibly want to eat our plants and attack our farmers so i won't have my meal this evening."

[swillo]

So what could be the solution to this? Make raptors as an enemy from the start? Nah, i don't think so. I may have another solution: If Raptors (or other animals) are on the way to your fields, they already have a order like: eat plants or attack gate. These orders combined with a little check if the target is player owned could already set the "enemy flag" for you, so your guards can attack them right at the gate. With this, Raptors in general are still neutral, but they won't pass your guards like "Oh Raptors want to visit our base? I don't care that they possibly want to eat our plants and attack our farmers so i won't have my meal this evening."

Very good thoughts. I would agree that when a neutral party changes to take an aggressive action they should be marked as aggressive.
This should include damage to property. That would deal with the river raptors and not set them aggressive as a whole since they are the weaker version that roams around the lower level areas.

Currently I just keep my gate closed and 4-6 turrets pointed that direction. Keeps the riff raff out.

[justinfm]

The Answer of the first Question is simple: Balancing. The game would be too easy if you can wall yourself off and everything behind the wall is safe.

BUT the river raptors are some kind of animal/reptile i think... how could they even know there are crops behind the walls they probably do not have x ray or can smell it that far away and when its still growing. something I dont understand too is why a big sword can break a giant gate without any help

and Walls ARE there to make the city safe unless it can be broken by stupid animals

[Hatsune_Neko]

the easiest answer is
it's a video game based loosely on reality but breaks that when it doesn't fit the Devs idea on game play.

the Dev is against players turtling up inside their bases never venturing out. so he brings targets to your gates. literally.
this is why resources are spread out so you can't get everything in one spot but need multiple bases to get everything you need.

the raptors are to make farming difficult and swarm your farms like rats or locusts. forcing you to either pack up and move or fight or figure out a better base layout. the better base layout tends to work the best in my opinion.

[Stonebiter3]

I guess it depends on your Base location I'v yet to have anything attack my Base, where was you guys settled? I settle near stack and never had any issues

[Rambler]

They'll go after any gate if it's in their way. A while back I had a team exploring a ruin in the swamp and the swamp raptors decided to knock down the ruin gate. They provided a good distraction for the spiders inside the ruin so I bandaged some of them up afterwards.

They don't seem to care about regular doors though, so if you lock the door to a storm house you can shoot at them from a rooftop turret.

[swillo]

Most animals IRL can smell their food sources from miles away. Wheat and Hemp, would be easily smellable even if you aren't smoking it.
And anything can break down a wall given enough time. Who knows maybe those huge bubbles on their backs are filled with acidic puss that they are rubbing all over your gates. (make ya hungry for peanut butter don't it)
That's why I have turrets covering them. Shoot um, skin um, make shoes outa um, and feed what's left to the dogs.

[Remairem]

Location must have some say in this.

I have yet to have Raptors futz with my crops. I get hit by bandits more often than anything else.

I also always close my gate and have my turrets manned.

I recently settled just inside Cannibal territory and they send wave after wave and most die at my gates from harpoon and crossbow.

I have been curious though once I do decide to setup shop and a bar etc, how I will be able to handle random mobs. (Open up gate and set outpost from private to public.)

My recent outpost/city only has a single entrance to ensure raids hit my main gate.

Perhaps the creation of a guard house or guard zone and you can set recruits to those and they will hinder any hostile person or animal that is not a pack animal.

The other side of that is that guards ( turrets and or sentry should auto attack any hostile person or non-pack animal that comes within x radius of the gate they are assigned to.

[Remairem]

The day after I responded I started to leave my gate open. The raptors saw the opening and took it.

I am not overly concerned about the raptors though when I end up having a storefront I would like to leave the gate open.

[Hatsune_Neko]

build the store outside your walls. then you can close the gates.

[Remairem]

Solid work around, though does seem a bit counter intuitive as inside the walls should = safe, while outside walls may = dead.

[Hatsune_Neko]

shop counter doesn't need people to man it
plus you can build a mini wall around it with its own gate. i done this in the past.

[Q T Arbuthnot]

I haven't built in a raptor-infested area for a while, but I found the best way to treat them was to:
a) leave the gates open (having ideally positioned them so that the raptors are walking through a killzone - turrets and strong characters working in/near the area)
b) don't build your economy round your crops - accept that you're going to lose them - processing animal skins into armour is probably the way to go.
c) arm (nearly) everyone - fighting raptors will toughen them up.
d) give everyone medkits/repair kits, and the medic/robotics job(s).
e) have one passive character well away from the action with medic/robotics skills and good stealth in case of TPK.

It will take a while, but eventually you'll be able to deal with the attacks and start profiting from your crops.

[justinfm]

the villagers keep attacking them even with Passive mode they yell the Holy Farmer Dialouge stuff like unholy beast and then they attack

[Bihlbo]

I would like a mod that introduces a dog house. In addition to the following, it has the same inventory and functionality as an animal feeder. Put your bonedog in there, and as long as the bonedog is "on duty" and conscious, any wildlife that gets within 30 feet of the dog house triggers the dog to attack. That would trigger all your non-passive townies to attack as well.

This solves the problem of raptors and such not being marked as an invading army until you've already lost crops. It also uses bonedogs the same way farmers have used dogs for thousands of years.

[Shily]

Kenshi is a game of struggle, raptors are part of it.

[Bihlbo]

After reading this thread I made a base just south of Broken Tooth, on the river. So many raptors.

I made the walls and gate before I started farming, so they wouldn't accost us. As soon as the first farm went in, swarm city. They broke through the gate and put nearly all my people into recovery comas (about 14 at the time). Needless to say, they ate all the crops.

Eventually my fighters got better at fighting, and I used the gate just to clump the raptors, opening it once they were no longer in a long line. Made it easier to "cleave" (using the D&D term) the group. If raptor nests spawned and made their way to my base in quick succession, it was likely that we had to let them eat their fill while we healed up. But, if we got them spaced out enough, my fighters were capable.

Recruited 6 more just for the purpose of being archers. I found that when I started, trying to scrape together some cats in a holy farm, that manning a crossbow would chase off the raptors, and if I micromanaged it, I could eventually (over several days) kill off a nest with one archer. And that was amazing training for the skill. Like, 0-50 in three days. So I just got any old cheapo recruit for my archer squad.

Walls created a hallway leading to the gate where 6 crossbows got full view of the assaulting enemies. My well-trained engineer was also making weapons in a house very near the gate, so as soon as it took damage he was out there to repair it. That doesn't keep up with the damage at all, but it helps.

Eventually, once the archer squad skilled up (like I said, it didn't take long even without training) every single raptor nest that assaults the gate will get killed before the gate gets broken. No exceptions. I have three barrels full of meat, two bulls that eat the gross meat, and I long ago stopped bothering to turn the skins into leather before I sold it, because I have so much of it coming in.

tl;dr: 6 archers shooting at raptor nests eating through your gate should do the job. Might not be enough if the Paladins or a large Dust Bandit group decide to attack. Lots of wheat farms draw in raptors and make bread, while the raptors provide the meat for meat wraps. You can easily support 50 people like this.

[Hatsune_Neko]

and that's how you do it.
well done Bihlbo, now you got a nice defencive force when you need it.