Discussion: bullet soaking

[quiz]

Hi all,

Two weeks ago my tribe (alpha on official PvP The Island server) got wiped (wipe was justified so that's not the point of the discussion) by a different tribe from another server. From what I saw (only saw a little of the raid since it was offline in the middle of the night and they were still busy in the morning) they mainly used carbons and one Bronto (just to store stuff in I think).

In the end we barely hold and were able to do a little bit of rebuilding (since we would have a second attack coming within less then 1 or 2 days) but instead of continuing the rebuilding we decided to collapse the base and quit the game for now. (I am sure people here will say it's a coward move but we wanted to see what happens (server froze for 30 sec / 1 min) and in our situation it was pointless to continue.)

The reason why in my opinion it was pointless to continue wasn't the disadvantage in player numbers (talking about 5 vs 24 (not all active players but they offline raided us with atleast 9 which almost doubles our numbers anyways)), it wasn't the base defense (I think the fact that it took them +- 9 hours of offline raiding to get in the first layer with dino's says enough) but it was mainly the bullet soaking that decided our fate.

In total we had 5 rings around our base and 3 of them contained turrets. The width from each ring to the next one was big enough to react on turrets, etc. but small enough to give cover to the next ring. Outside and main building ring contained a combination of player only and players or tamed creatures only where the ring between both was only player only. It's hard to describe how many turrets with had but I think it would be atleast 30 on each side of the building on ground level (all completely full with 1200 bullets).

About discussing the issue: bullet soaking

I personally don't think that many big raids (online or offline) would be won without bullet soaking of certain dino's like carbons. The veggie cakes made this tactic even more powerfull but since the nerf that's no longer the case. We also used the soaking tactic before in the past and with decent carbons (decent amount of points in health, mate boosted, good saddle and imprinted in some bases) you can keep the damage of a single bullet on atleast 2 or 3 (maybe even 1 or 2 since we could have had better saddles and I didn't test with imprinted once) with results in atleast 8K/10K bullet soaking per carbon.

I think it's fair to describe carbons as suicide dino's because of how easy they can be breeded (only takes a day and I solo breeded 20 of them at the same time) and how cheap the saddles are to make. Lets purely look at the resource cost (beside the fact that gathering the resources + producing 10K bullets will take much longer then taming/breeding a carbon + making it's saddle) and lets discuss if it's fair to lose 5K ingot + 45K gunpowder (since you craft 2 pieces each time) for a few hundred ingot + some fiber and hide or does ARK has a problem called bullet soaking?

Possible solution:

I don't think that bullet soaking should be out of the game. It's basically the only proper way to get inside certain base at this point. But I think that bullet soaking overall (not only carbons since back in 2015 rex soaking was a thing and now we also have golems ofcourse) nerfed.

How? How about adding a multiplier to a certain dino (24 hours debuff) for every bullet it's soaking that adds up to the normal damage the dino would get?

Bullet #001: 2 damage + 1 = 3 damage
Bullet #010: 2 damage + 10 = 12 damage
Bullet #050: 2 damage + 50 = 52 damage
Bullet #100: 2 damage + 100 = 102 damage

Beside of the low damage in the start it won't hurt dino's that much when they accidently run/fly in turrets but after 100 bullets you would have receive 5350 damage compared to the 200 damage you will currently get.

Personal conclusion:

Soaking is a problem. You can't outfarm people in bullets compared to the amount of bullets people can soak when you are offline. Because of that (beside having a bigger tribe then 5 people and having 24/7 protection) there is no way to be able to defende your base properly. In the past this wasn't that big of an issue but with the transfer changes you basically have to prepare against the worst thing(s) that could happen.

In my opinion the problem can be solved by adding a multiplier to auto turrets (not the minigun turret) so (offline) soaking will take longer (dino swapping) and will be less cost efficient.

 

Would love to hear the bullet soaking stories of you guys and if you agree or disagree (and why) with this discussion (bullet soaking is a problem) and my possible solution.

[Suave]

I have designed a completely soak proof base... get creative! it gets fun if you really put effort into it, and not just lots of turrets on top of dino gates.

 

[Suave]

BTW, I don't think soaking Is a problem.

[quiz]

Just now, Suave said:

I have designed a completely soak proof base... get creative! it gets fun if you really put effort into it, and not just lots of turrets on top of dino gates.

 

Then I am really curious about your design because there is no valid design that is 100% soak proof. Yes I can make the first layer soak proof but it will create blind spots which will create holes at some point. Being creative isn't enough in my opinion.

[Suave]

If anyone ever got to my library... which is my most prized possession... I would quit the game. But that will literally never happen. That's how confident I am.

[Cullis]

Umm, you're doing it wrong. 

X-plants are the first line of defence, turrets are just the backstop. And with x-plants, the ammo is very, very cheap because dungbeetles are so OP. 

47 minutes ago, quiz said:

In my opinion the problem can be solved by adding a multiplier to auto turrets (not the minigun turret) so (offline) soaking will take longer (dino swapping) and will be less cost efficient.

 

In my opinion, 24/7 gameplay is toxic and needs to die. It leads to burn out and unhappiness. Servers ought to be regional, and only run during certain hours, or have structure protection during the low pop period. For example, EU servers would run between 14 and 0200, or if 24/7 they'd have  20x structural hitpoints between 0200 and 1400. So raiding then would be a pain, and it'd make more sense to raid online. 

Because, everyone, even Ark players, need some sleep. 

[quiz]

17 minutes ago, Suave said:

If anyone ever got to my library... which is my most prized possession... I would quit the game. But that will literally never happen. That's how confident I am.

Sorry dude, if you are not willing to reveal anything then I can't take your contribution seriously. I can go to each topic and say certain things are not a problem without backing it up. I agree with you that you can design a base that takes time (like I said, it took them +- 9 hours which most of it offline raiding to get in anyways) but turret on player only = boxing on platforms and otherwise it's straight up soaking. And yes, you can make chokes which are way harder to soak and we also designed our base that you couldn't walk in with ground dino's but I am already talking about the point that the "soaking proof" area is already cleared with rockets/C4.

And I am talking about reaching the front of the base. Getting inside and getting loot is a whole different discussion since I think our "maze" was pretty well designed and they never reached it. When you are inside bullet soaking isn't relevant anymore since it will be straight up player vs turret since dino's won't fit anymore. Removing all the foundations (or first layer of walls) would have been cheaper for them then going inside.

16 minutes ago, Cullis said:

Umm, you're doing it wrong. 

X-plants are the first line of defence, turrets are just the backstop. And with x-plants, the ammo is very, very cheap because dungbeetles are so OP. 

In my opinion, 24/7 gameplay is incredibly toxic and needs to die. It leads to burn out and unhappiness. Servers ought to be regional, and only run during certain hours, or have structure protection during the low period. For example, EU servers would run between 14 and 0200, or if 24/7 they'd have  20x structural hitpoins between 0200 and 1400. 

Because, everyone, even Ark players, need some sleep. 

My bad, I was only talking about auto turrets but ofcourse we also have quite some plant turrets around (and on top) of our base. Totally agree that they are good to use and a must because they are so cheap but they are also easy to dodge and even more easier to remove (grenades, rockets or just straight up dino power).

The reason why we also quit is because it was going to burn us out. Impossible to play 24/7 and to avoid the offline raiding/soaking if it's so easy to do. Maybe the TEK tier will change the way PvP and offline raiding works. I was reading something about force fields that prevent access/damage from stranger but I am not sure if it's true and how it will work.

[sal]

Let the saddles loose Durability and break when shot with turrets -> problem solved.

Make breeding turtles much much harder or remove the flat dmg reduction they have.

[Brayn]

Doesn't having tons of plants set to high with some auto turrets behind them set to medium get you to soak proof?  The plants do more damage to turtles than bullets and they can't get in range of your autos to soak them since the xplants push them away from the turrets.

of course the counter for this is to simply catapult plants since 1 boulder is all it takes to destroy a plant.  Heck, why even soak the autos once the plants are down.  Prim Cannon outranges turrets and 2 shots them.  

I mean even fire arrows are faster than soaking.  If they have 9 people shooting fire arrows, that's 9 damage to the turret per volley.  1,000 fire arrows per turret... much less than that to take down crop plots.

Soaking leaves the attacker quite vulnerable if you're online now that turrets can't be on platforms.

All that said I read an amazing suggestion here.  Every time a structure you own gets popped, all other attached structures gain some extra resistance, capped at like 50%.  Would force raiders to be very surgical about how they raid and if their path gets blocked, they would have to retreat and wait for the resistance buff to wear off (24 hours?).  

[KRR21]

Did you have some of the auto turrets and plant X set to "players only" so they wouldn't target the tames and waste all of your bullets?

[quiz]

1 hour ago, sal said:

Let the saddles loose Durability and break when shot with turrets -> problem solved.

Make breeding turtles much much harder or remove the flat dmg reduction they have.

Good one, didn't think about that. I am sure they are going to do something with the durability before the official release so we will see. It will really depends how fast they will break because then it's all about resource cost (saddles) vs resource cost (bullets) and breeding doesn't make sense anymore. I think breeding atm is fine (should maybe be a bit longer if you compare it to the others) and it's still usefull for PvE (arena bosses) and everything that's going to come with the TEK tier challenges.

37 minutes ago, Brayn said:

Doesn't having tons of plants set to high with some auto turrets behind them set to medium get you to soak proof?  The plants do more damage to turtles than bullets and they can't get in range of your autos to soak them since the xplants push them away from the turrets.

of course the counter for this is to simply catapult plants since 1 boulder is all it takes to destroy a plant.  Heck, why even soak the autos once the plants are down.  Prim Cannon outranges turrets and 2 shots them.  

I mean even fire arrows are faster than soaking.  If they have 9 people shooting fire arrows, that's 9 damage to the turret per volley.  1,000 fire arrows per turret... much less than that to take down crop plots.

Soaking leaves the attacker quite vulnerable if you're online now that turrets can't be on platforms.

All that said I read an amazing suggestion here.  Every time a structure you own gets popped, all other attached structures gain some extra resistance, capped at like 50%.  Would force raiders to be very surgical about how they raid and if their path gets blocked, they would have to retreat and wait for the resistance buff to wear off (24 hours?).  

We had quite some plant turrets around our base (should have been way more since we had atleast 1,5K fertilizer stacked) came one day short (got raided that night) to place everything. The placement of the plant turrets was in front of the auto turrets but it wasn't enough since they got cleared first (don't know how since it was a offline raid) and after that they started the auto turret soaking.

In our case a 24 hour buff wouldn't have made a differents but I think it's good to do something about offline raiding overall. While we would have been online they would never have soaking enough to get even close to our front gate. I think ARK base defense possibilities are quite limited atm since they all have some sort of weakspot.

27 minutes ago, KRR21 said:

Did you have some of the auto turrets and plant X set to "players only" so they wouldn't target the tames and waste all of your bullets?

Like I explained in my first post, all turret rings had turrets on player only.

[KRR21]

1 hour ago, quiz said:

Like I explained in my first post, all turret rings had turrets on player only.

Sorry, it was a long post so I didn't remember all of the details from it.

[Gr0knik]

3 hours ago, Suave said:

If anyone ever got to my library... which is my most prized possession... I would quit the game. But that will literally never happen. That's how confident I am.

Hi wondering what server you play on.....for a friend. 

[Suave]

Just now, Gr0knik said:

Hi wondering what server you play on.....for a friend. 

[LilNastyGurl]

If you relied solely on automated weaponry (xplants and auto-turrets) to defend you then I don't feel sorry. Especially since they had a 9 hr window to wipe you.

I think soaking is fine because many tribes rely solely on 25x25 walls of turrets and plants to do the defending for them, ONLINE and offline. TvT isn't fun to watch, or participate in, they were probably as aggravated and annoyed as you were after it all. One person I played against defended their base with just a few autos and a minigun turret, and that thing did not care how many turtles we dropped in the base. It aimed straight for quetzals and any tames getting too close, and just let neutral dire-bears finish off any "dropped dinos".

I'm sure if they added a "ignore specific dinos" option to the turrets most of this would go away. I'm really iffy about Autos in general. they're great for defending you while you're away from base or asleep, but then their utility becomes standard, and then they replace dinos and players completely in base defense.

[quiz]

34 minutes ago, LilNastyGurl said:

If you relied solely on automated weaponry (xplants and auto-turrets) to defend you then I don't feel sorry. Especially since they had a 9 hr window to wipe you.

I think soaking is fine because many tribes rely solely on 25x25 walls of turrets and plants to do the defending for them, ONLINE and offline. TvT isn't fun to watch, or participate in, they were probably as aggravated and annoyed as you were after it all. One person I played against defended their base with just a few autos and a minigun turret, and that thing did not care how many turtles we dropped in the base. It aimed straight for quetzals and any tames getting too close, and just let neutral dire-bears finish off any "dropped dinos".

I'm sure if they added a "ignore specific dinos" option to the turrets most of this would go away. I'm really iffy about Autos in general. they're great for defending you while you're away from base or asleep, but then their utility becomes standard, and then they replace dinos and players completely in base defense.

Going to disagree with you. Would have loved to use dino's on neutral or aggressive but I am almost certain you never experienced a wild titano in your base before? At first you will think that having your dino's on neutral will be fine in this case but wait till you drop a wild carnivore dino close to it... the AOE will trigger the titano and your base is gone or it's unstable which results in even easier offline raiding... (And trust me, it's quite easy to kite a wild titano inside someone's base. Our base design would avoid wild titano's hugging the base but I haven't found a way to make neutral dino's work without risking losing everything.)

So dino's on neutral/aggresive is no option. Any other suggestions since the minigun will only work while being online and that rarely happens?

[Cullis]

7 hours ago, sal said:

Let the saddles loose Durability and break when shot with turrets -> problem solved.

Make breeding turtles much much harder or remove the flat dmg reduction they have.

Turtles don't have a flat dmg reduction, there is a percentage reduction based on the body part that gets hit.

[Cullis]

3 hours ago, quiz said:

Going to disagree with you. Would have loved to use dino's on neutral or aggressive but I am almost certain you never experienced a wild titano in your base before? At first you will think that having your dino's on neutral will be fine in this case but wait till you drop a wild carnivore dino close to it... the AOE will trigger the titano and your base is gone or it's unstable which results in even easier offline raiding... (And trust me, it's quite easy to kite a wild titano inside someone's base. Our base design would avoid wild titano's hugging the base but I haven't found a way to make neutral dino's work without risking losing everything.)

 

Titanos are very squishy for their size and apparent menace. All you need to protect your base from them is a big x-plant wall and some turrets, all this behind a ton of pillars. They can't blow up the pillars easily bc turrets, if titano wants to smash the pillars is has to come into x-plant range, it has no dmg reduction which means it's taking N*80 dps. Which means roughly that 20 plants firing at it will kill it in less than 2 minutes. (Don't sue me if this is not entirely accurate, I never got around to measuring the dmg it takes)

[Tycoon01]

I agree with a lot of the sentiment here. Soaking is a boring war. But all bases should be wipe-able without 70/70 on a server so there needs to be some way to get the job done. If not soaking, then what?

[Cullis]

8 hours ago, quiz said:

think breeding atm is fine (should maybe be a bit longer if you compare it to the others)

Saw this picture on reddit today:

 

The post said those are lvl 270+ pteras. Breeding seems OP as it is, but who am I to judge? 

[Blackzilla]

18 hours ago, Suave said:

I have designed a completely soak proof base... get creative! it gets fun if you really put effort into it, and not just lots of turrets on top of dino gates.

 

That's complete bullpoop, I have 4.5k hours in this game at least 3k hours is PvP/raiding and I have never once came across a base that is "soak proof" 

Only way to make a base soak proof is to have 0 turrets.

[Krick]

10 hours ago, Cullis said:

Saw this picture on reddit today:

 

The post said those are lvl 270+ pteras. Breeding seems OP as it is, but who am I to judge? 

level dosen´t really tell how good a the dino will be http://imgur.com/a/rq2Hw the lvl 258 ptera only has 3 more levels in health compared to the level 240.
And have you done any breeding? it literately takes forever depending on how long rng decides to screw you over, now that I have a level 258 male and female it wont take me long to get more females, and get even more eggs so their really only need to implement heavy penalties for inbreeding

[Suave]

2 hours ago, Blackzilla said:

That's complete bullpoop, I have 4.5k hours in this game at least 3k hours is PvP/raiding and I have never once came across a base that is "soak proof" 

Only way to make a base soak proof is to have 0 turrets.

Ok, what I meant to say, is that in the time it would take someone to get through my defenses, they would either give up or get lost, or I would be back on. So if I just sat back and watched it happen then yes they could probably destroy my base, but honestly I have spent several hundred hours testing on my private server to make sure that it is more work than its worth.

[Thabeatdown]

Gunna breed some tank turtles

[Blackzilla]

36 minutes ago, Suave said:

Ok, what I meant to say, is that in the time it would take someone to get through my defenses, they would either give up or get lost, or I would be back on. So if I just sat back and watched it happen then yes they could probably destroy my base, but honestly I have spent several hundred hours testing on my private server to make sure that it is more work than its worth.

Thanks for explaining a bit more on what you meant. But yes if you a have a big enough base and you compartmentalise your base good enough it will take raiders more time but it won't stop them.