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[Crazy Cow]

The key to pony survival is instant underground expansion. One entrance, one exit, one place to cover with all of your military might. If you're going outside for anything at all, so is a security team, and you go outside as little as possible.

And here's a hint: don't get robots. They're a complete waste of money; a good pony with a good machete can kill more than a dozen turrets could hope to match. Unless Lycaeon finds a way to improve laser weapons dramatically (perhaps a liquid attack set at such high temperatures that it melts flesh?), all robots are just dead weight. I'd actually prefer it if the protectaponies didn't have laser weapons at all and just had melee skills, because then they'd be halfway useful.

The only exception is flamethrower turrets, but you can worry about those when you can actually make them.

[Lycaeon]

Bacon Pants, were the snatchers Alicorns?

And Crazy Cow, I didn't choose shrubs for a number of reasons, the main ones being there are going be a lot more of them when the Ministry of Peace arc comes around, and they're not reliable in terms of yield.

Trees are pretty optimal, and they're supposed to grow back (gradually), otherwise Stables would be left unable to advance technologically. Hence the buried piles...the various storms gradually "weather" away the soil to expose more and more salvage layers.

I can't understate the importance of technology...combat/anti-machine rifles and steel ammunition, upgraded robots and turrets, and a developed spell system are much more effective than the traditional melee squads, which themselves are best against wasteland wildlife and raiders. I'll be adding even more useful weapons in the next update, as well as revamping the steel rangers so they don't stomp all over everything.

And while the robots you can bring on embark may be only moderately useful, their upgraded forms are much more effective, especially the ones for Mr. Hooves.

[Crazy Cow]

Alright, cool. I'm not saying your method is worse than mine or anything, just wondering your reasons. I can't say much on end-game strategy, though, mainly because I haven't gotten there yet ;P

[Bacon Pants]

Bacon Pants, were the snatchers Alicorns?

No, the ambushers were all called "[Name] Unicorn Hammerponies" all with purple names (they were all unicorns, too; don't know if any of that info helps at all) and then snatchers were either just called Snatchers, or were called Outcasts, with grey names. All I can tell you is that I saw a group of purple "r"s advancing on my fort, and that they were halted by grey "r"s and dead bodies were the product of this reaction. Maybe the fact that they were all berserked might give some insight...

[Lycaeon]

Ah, raiders then.

[Replica]

Turrets and robots are useless!?

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA

[Crazy Cow]

They're worse than mud ponies! The fourth time my robots failed to do anything but litter the ground with laser bolts I stopped getting them.

[ender1200]

So far i found the gouls to be major pests, serves me right for trying to empark on savege teritory. They manege to destroy my first embark for 0.88 in less than a season. I than reclamed the fortress and shuffled to get all my stuff underground, took me half a year with all the cancels coused by gouls. Funny thing is that my bighorns menneged to buy me time and even get some of the gouls before they died.

By the way how do i use the Mr.hooves ? I got one from a migration wave, and jsut told him to stay at the entrance hall becouse he wandered outside and got mauled by gouls...

[Bacon Pants]

I have to agree with Replica on this one. Granted, a single turret is fairly poor, but if you manage to build a sizable wall of guns, NOTHING will get anywhere near that wall. I'm actually confident I could take down an alicorn with all these turrets (and my normal military, of course). Hell even if it takes down one, there'll be two more in range, more than willing to exact revenge. Though, getting to that point is a bit of a hassle if you don't trade too often.

But when it really boils down to it, robots make better meat(-er, metal) shields because they can take a bit more abuse (from what I've seen), and if they do die, nobody really cares that much (no love for the robros), so the aftermath isn't that hectic.

[Lycaeon]

Mr. Hooves is a maintenance bot...once you get a RobronCo maintenance station up and running, you can designate nearby robots for repair and an adjacent Mr. Hooves will begin maintenance on them.

His upgrades are much more useful. A Mr. Macintosh can devastate ghouls with his flamethrower and plasma caster, while a Nurse Redheart greatly improves recovery time for designated wounded ponies in the hospital.

Ordinary protectaponies aren't too effective...they were originally designed for civilian roles such as ticket collectors. However, their armored version is better.

And the basic security turrets are just that...basic security. Minigun and flamethrower turrets, on the other hoof...

[Crazy Cow]

Guess it all boils down to personal preference, then. I like dogs because they're cheap and plentiful; the effort I have to put into making robots useful is better spent on improving my military, in my opinion.
*shrugs*
Flamer turrets are godlike, though. If I ever get the schematics for them I will start using them.

[Maklak]

I just tried the 0.88 version. It runs under WINE just fine, so I don't have to figure out how to put all this into a Linux version. Worldgen took 11 trieas and 5 minutes or so, and I embarked in the year 200.

I had a big unicorn female with Fleur-de-lis for a Cutie Mark, so I made her my expedition leader. I also got a bonesteer, so I made her my CMP. I got a weaponsmith and a farmer as well, but otherwise nothing too interesting. BTW, CMs didn't give me any natural skills on embark, AFAIK, I just got those I paid for.

I normally embark with ore, make metal items on the spot, and usually get away with it. This time I took one hacksaw and one power drill, though. I didn't take anything in the way of weapons and armour because I usually don't and anyway "Stable Dwellers get BB guns on embark". Turned out, they don't I took one sprite-bot too. Oh and I went to a cold, normal region with lots of trees.

Shortly after embark I attracted the attention of two feral pegasai ghouls. My sprite-bot wasn't up to the task, so I've sent Fleur, who was also my miner, and she won. Then some damn feral dogs went enraged and started harassing my ponies. Fleur rescued them again. By the time I set up a hospital, most of my ponies had wounds from all the random fighting, one bighorner died and my sprite-bot was missing all its wings, antennae and laser pistol, like a bug after some child played with it. Worst of all, six of my ponies immediately went to the hospital to rest, including my chief medical pony. I deconstructed their beds (or constructed and deconstructed beds under those lying on the floor, but by the time the water thawed, I still lost three ponies, including my weaponsmith. Whatever I do with hospitals and beds and designating another CMP, I can't get my ponies to be diagnosed and healed.

Four migrants came, including one hunter and one foal, so I may be able to pull it through. Starting over might be a better option, though. This was supposed to be a trial run and I'm already crippled.

I processed lots of salvage logs and got a lot of random stuff, including platinum (!) wheelbarrows and buckets, but mostly burnt-out wires, scrap metal and plating. I still don't know, what it's for. I also got some knives and pitchforks. Those might be weapons.

I recommend that you put an example embark profile in the first post. It just says to take a toolbox with me. For example, two melee fighters are necessary with all the animals raging on sight. Bots might be good later and guns and ammo are expensive at embark.

Next-->

[Lycaeon]

CM's give increases in skill learning rates, and decreases in skill rust, while DF's hospital system is buggy in general. Salvage is better explained under Workshops and Industries in the first post; you'll want to build a supply depot and workbench in order to process the salvage yard products, though things like the pitchforks and knives are only useful for smelting.

I do see your point on  the hostile wildlife...I'll go ahead and add embark tips to the front page.

Thanks for the feedback, and I hope you enjoy the mod!

[Replica]

dogs

No but seriously, seriously.
You don't HAVE to use robots, but let me just tell you why I think they are so incredibly awesomely amazing, let me tell you, about the wonder that is Lycaeons robotic sons.

You don't need to make robots if it is too much of a hassle, traders bring them on request.
And to make robots really useful you need to bring plenty.
This is pretty much how it works,

One turret? Meh.
Five turrets? A'ight...
Ten turrets? Pretty okay.
Twenty turrets behind a labyrinth of fortifications with a couple of sprite bots to act as spotters? You get the gist, you don't even need upgrades with that many turrets.

Turrets also count as living creatures, so they can't be trap avoided by creatures who have the TRAPAVOID tag, if you line your trap corridor with enough turrets, trap avoiding creatures wont be able to make it past you, if you have pits on the sides, these creatures will also dodge the constant attacks and fall down the pits where you can impale/drown/burn them.

Best use I got from vanilla protectaponies is to assign them to my melee milita, their weak ranged power is capable of crippling shots that slow the local pests down enough for the melee units to charge in and slice them to pieces, they aren't too good against much of anything else, but they make a good addition and excellent pest control if your early game melee milita is having a hard time catching up to Bloatsprites, Radrats and other pests.
Also since they are well capable of defending themselves in close combat (being made of metal and kicking the living shit out of anything that comes in range) they make good auxiliaries and shields for the melee militaponies, a puny squad of 10 mud ponies and boneheads is now all of a sudden a squad of 20+.

Sprite bots are much better at spotting sneaking thieves, snatchers and ambushers than cats and dogs, fill the same function as either (guard dogs, except with lasers and polka music. And cats, that hunt vermin to some degree) and their populations can be more easily controlled (don't adopt like cats do, and don't reproduce, so it is easier to get rid of them when you don't want more of them).
If you don't like them roaming around above ground and getting killed (also a plus, they are very expendable and cheap) you can tie them to guard corridors like dogs.
When you have 10+ of them roaming around above ground they will also become confident enough to engage hostile wildlife, who run like hell when attacked by multiple sprite bots, this includes black radscoprions who often attempt to take a couple of jabs at the little floating balls before suddenly falling back, this is a DF AI thing.
Other notable things to mention is that they don't suffer from crippling wounds to the same degree as cats and dogs do, and aren't as affected by irradiated dust storms and other bad weather that fleshy things are, they just don't give a fuck it seems.

Mr. Hooves I haven't tried that much, haven't had the opportunity to upgrade them, but if it is true that they make good medics when upgraded to Ms. Redheart then they make an invaluable addition to your hospital, as your ponies are all fucking retarded anyway.
The offensive upgrade I assume turns them into shootier but less resistant protectaponies, which is again, a plus for your milita.

The strongpoints of robots as a whole are the following:
- They are expendable, quick and easily replacable.
- They are resilient to damage (ie NOT FLESHY).
- They act as a force multiplier to your milita and can be tasked with protecting your fort on their own (DOGS DON'T SHOOT LASERS AND BULLETS), which puts your fleshy emotional ponies out of harms way, which in turn helps in preventing unhappiness and unnecessary deaths.
- They are easily controlled and manageable overall.

I haven't advanced enough in tech to go beyond a mix and match of robots and soldiers, but presumably, once enough upgrades are made and robots obtained you could theoretically replace your entire milita with robots that do all the defending for you.

So robots are your friends, and one of your greatest assets.
Lastly, Robot Rock.

I'll be back later to gloat and fanboy over the robots some more once I get more of them running.

[Lycaeon]

Good explanation of the robots Replica, though keep in mind that even this is an introductory system. I have other plans for robots in mind.

To each his own as well...there are many ways to survive in the wasteland, of which robots are only one. I personally prefer fortified ranged squads armed with combat and hunting rifles...while security turrets are nice early on, you'll find their bullets are unable to penetrate ranger armor and alicorn shields. They do serve as quite the distraction though.