Ulstrasonic fences. Do they work at all?

[TheFourthDoctor]

In my view, they're now too passive. Before BERT you had to be careful with unguarded colonists, explorers or embarked units because even "green" aliens would occasionally attack them. Now there's just no threat.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Derydlus]

In my view, they're now too passive. Before BERT you had to be careful with unguarded colonists, explorers or embarked units because even "green" aliens would occasionally attack them. Now there's just no threat.

I've played four games of Rising Tide so far (although only two of them to completion), and in all four games the aliens didn't attack me once until I attacked them. I managed to get almost all of the artifacts on a standard size map, wandering directly over alien hives, and they never once attacked me. The moment any of my units attacked an alien, however, they started randomly attacking.

Until this is fixed, my impression is that it's imperative to avoid attacking the aliens until you have all of the artifacts.

The fences seemed to do a good job at keeping aliens out when I built them, but in one game I started right next to an alien nest and they ignored my ultrasonic fence.

 

[Eji1700]

Ever since Rising Tide came out, I have also never lost a trade unit to aliens, even when the drawn trade path CLEARLY passes through an alien. This is before I get the quest that makes them immune to aliens.

I've lost like 7 or 8 before I just stopped building them until I had the fence quest.

Further I do feel the fence actually does something, although I'd swear that aliens just stop spawning at around turn 60 or so...or something changes and they're suddenly much less common, as opposed to the hex screwing jerks they are in the early game.

 

[Polycrates]

Does anyone have the updated code for the new Fences? I tech to them mainly to get the Quest for trade immunity, really. More than the City benefits.

I found this in GlobalDefines, not sure if this is the relevant code, but it's not in the vanilla file so I suspect it is.

<Row Name="ALIEN_REPEL_DEFAULT_STRENGTH">
<Value>30</Value>
</Row>
<Row Name="ALIEN_REPEL_DEFAULT_TOLERANCE">
<Value>15</Value>
</Row>

 

[TheFourthDoctor]

I've played four games of Rising Tide so far (although only two of them to completion), and in all four games the aliens didn't attack me once until I attacked them. I managed to get almost all of the artifacts on a standard size map, wandering directly over alien hives, and they never once attacked me. The moment any of my units attacked an alien, however, they started randomly attacking.

Until this is fixed, my impression is that it's imperative to avoid attacking the aliens until you have all of the artifacts.

The fences seemed to do a good job at keeping aliens out when I built them, but in one game I started right next to an alien nest and they ignored my ultrasonic fence.

The problem is that if it's clear that they will not attack unless you attack first, that renders the "blue" status pointless.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Miravlix]

It seems completely useless now.

I've tested both quest choices, in case doing the trade protection one disable the repelling effect, but the aliens move in on my city in both cases.

You risk starvation to the invasion, a bad costal city can be really troubled by loosing it's sea tiles or having a ton of aliens blocking land tiles, trying to kill them early destroys all your explorer units as all aliens on the map starts attacking your units.

 

[Promethian]

They said in one of the streams they tweaked the agro code. Non-combat units are less likely to be attacked by aliens but combat units are more likely. This is why our "free" aliens from expeditions get attacked at lot, they are all considered combat units.

 

[Aldor]

The problem is that if it's clear that they will not attack unless you attack first, that renders the "blue" status pointless.

Well if they're green, they WILL attack you if you ever attack them. Once they're blue, they don't care anymore if you "remove" one of them forcibly from near your cities. So, blue is still optimal, and very easy to get with the number of nests around (just settle a city near some nests, and quickly buy the nest tiles, then wait for x turns).

Btw: Is there a "raging aliens" setting? If there is, I wonder how that would work...

 

[WiseGreen]

Is it just me losing colonists, workers, explorers and trade units all the time?

Usually I can get away with an unit accidentaly getting into <2 tiles of a nest for one turn, but if I don't move it quickly I'll surely lose it. Even civilian units.

Another thing that's really frustrating is that (I think?) aliens calculate how close you are to their nest based on the total moves of the unit; patrol boats start super soft and sometimes you move into <4 tiles of a nest without noticing - sometimes it's terrain you haven't even explored yet! Specially in frigid/arid/primordial where aliens seem to be stronger.

 

[Callonia]

I go purity often but I have found that it is usually to my own benefit to be not too aggressive towards the aliens because it means I spend less production on exploration an focus on bringing other AIs under my heel. And I stopped picking the +1 range on city repel to shielded trade units.

I've gotten to orange twice against arid aliens and let it cool off back to green. Lost one worker in that game while aliens was green.

About patrol ships being ganked by aliens, there's rather easy answer to that, move forwards two hexs then move forward one hex and then move forward one hex again if you feel like it's safe to do so.

And if there's a kraken ripping up improvements around your capital, sometimes it wants a sacrifice before it leaves. I fed a Kraken one freshly produced from the capital cutter and it left me in peace never to bother me again.

 

[Red Menace]

I go purity often but I have found that it is usually to my own benefit to be not too aggressive towards the aliens because it means I spend less production on exploration an focus on bringing other AIs under my heel. And I stopped picking the +1 range on city repel to shielded trade units.

I've gotten to orange twice against arid aliens and let it cool off back to green. Lost one worker in that game while aliens was green.

About patrol ships being ganked by aliens, there's rather easy answer to that, move forwards two hexs then move forward one hex and then move forward one hex again if you feel like it's safe to do so.

And if there's a kraken ripping up improvements around your capital, sometimes it wants a sacrifice before it leaves. I fed a Kraken one freshly produced from the capital cutter and it left me in peace never to bother me again.

if the question is what to do about the aliens than why not Cutter groups, maybe two Cutters and a Cruiser. I find that I have enough production early to meet an acceptable delay. but I do tend to play more aggressively and focus heavily on production so maybe what is an acceptable delay for me is to much for others. but sometimes I send a lone cutter out and I usually take cautionary moves, I don't like waste. my heavy aggression isn't misplaced either I've been burned by green aliens way to much to ever trust them.

the Kraken requires sacrifice!
well lets feed the Kraken then, I have the perfect meal.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

They do need clearer thresholds.. if they are a certain color, they should not change how they react until they change color

Blue-will not attack, unless you get them to green
Green-will only attack units in nest range, and Occasionally isolated units away from cities.. if you attack them, rather than making them attack you it makes them Orange (locally) that way you can tell that they are mad
Orange-will Probably attack you if you are away from the city depending on strength, may attack isolated units near the city or small cities
Red-will attack anything based on strength

 

[Callonia]

Green doesn't mean it won't attack you, it can be curious or just be feeling hungry and think you might make for a tasty snack.

 

[Greasy Dave]

I personally think the trade route alien immunity from the Fence is cheating.

If you think about it logically, what kind of possible fence could be built over thousands of kilometres of ocean, withstand currents, storms, damage from shipsand cost almost nothing to build? That's a Wonder at the very least! Not some early tech low production nonsense.

Cities and civs are far more spread out in BERT thanks to ocean cities. International trade routes almost certainly pass through large areas of unsettled land and ocean. The idea that my cargo ships are somehow sailing between some floating tethered fence (what if the kraken comes from below?)- or somehow carrying some sonic protection device (which my military don't have?) is not sci-fi, it's just nonsense. So, I've not been using it. It makes the game harder certainly....I use internal trade routes which I can police. But it's also more challenging I recommend it.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

If you think about it logically, what kind of possible fence could be built over thousands of kilometres of ocean, withstand currents, storms, damage from shipsand cost almost nothing to build? That's a Wonder at the very least! Not some early tech low production nonsense.

I think the quest mentions that your techies can build a small mobile version of the fence and put it on each trade unit. So, the immunity to aliens options represents you putting a portable ultrasonic device on each trade unit to ward off the aliens.

 

[Miravlix]

I think the quest mentions that your techies can build a small mobile version of the fence and put it on each trade unit. So, the immunity to aliens options represents you putting a portable ultrasonic device on each trade unit to ward off the aliens.

Completely wrong.

The deal is that the fence annoy the aliens, by not making it as powerful they get less annoyed and leave the trade convoys alone.

Not that it make much sense, but that is the in game lore.

 

[mnf]

Completely wrong.

The deal is that the fence annoy the aliens, by not making it as powerful they get less annoyed and leave the trade convoys alone.

Not that it make much sense, but that is the in game lore.

The actual quest text says this:

"Now that we've completed our Ultrasonic Fence, we've found a new application for the technology. At the moment, the fences are static, with a reach that goes beyond what we originally expected. However, if we reverse the polarity, it will decrease the ultrasonic circumference, allowing the fence to become mobile, like a personal shield. Do we stick to the original design or embrace the unexpected and create something new?" (Emphasis mine.)

May I ask where the game lore saying that the fence annoy the aliens were taken from?

Back on topic, the fence not being reliable means that we're forced to take to the extremes---either befriend the aliens, or exterminate any that come near---and the quest choice becomes a non-choice due to the unreliability. I think this is a very bad design decision.

 

[Aldor]

Actually...does anyone take the other option in the quest (not "protect trade units")? Iirc, the choices are "minimize fence output" (for trade units) and "maximize fence output" (for increased range). Maybe the fence only "works" if you actually keep its original design and maximize fence output..?

 

[mnf]

Nope, it doesn't work. I tested it just now. With the option to keep the original polarity, i.e. 3 tiles of repelling distance, the aliens still just leisurely walk up right in the face of my city and then wander away, tile by tile.

 

[PestWulf]

Actually...does anyone take the other option in the quest (not "protect trade units")? Iirc, the choices are "minimize fence output" (for trade units) and "maximize fence output" (for increased range). Maybe the fence only "works" if you actually keep its original design and maximize fence output..?

I was hoping that was the case, but it is not. When I chose the 3 rings of fence versus the default 2 from the quest decision it did absolutely nothing. Everything from Scrabs to Worms just walked right up to my city and proceeded to demolish all of my improvements.

Those aliens were currently green when they did that, and I might add that it did not improve over the course of time or with overlapping fields. I planted three cities three tiles away all with fences and they didn't matter one bit. Aliens came and went with the same frequency as before the fences. It is definitely a broken mechanic.