Castle fortifications in Ark practical?

[Matt6123]

On pvp servers players usually just build large square buildings dotted with turrets. Then they surround their building with dinosaur gates. I was wondering if this was really the best way to defend a base.

First the square box usually doesn't have any windows or defensive towers for players to shoot from. On top of that, the tall dinosaur gates surrounding the base blocks all vantage points for defenders to see. Attackers can take cover behind the gates and defenders will have a hard time shooting at them.

Building more defensible structures such as walls that defenders can walk across seem like a better option.

here are some examples

Castle crenelations for defenders to take cover.

Towers on the walls that stick out to allow more firing angles.

 

machicolations in order to fire down on the enemy

Even advanced pvp players don't seem to build castle like defenses. Do you think making realistic defensive structures are practical in Ark? Are structures just too easy to be blown up to make sense, or does offline raiding happen too much for players to bother making defensive structures they can use.

 

 

 

 

 

[Hobgobblin247]

1 hour ago, Matt6123 said:

On pvp servers players usually just build large square buildings dotted with turrets. Then they surround their building with dinosaur gates. I was wondering if this was really the best way to defend a base.

First the square box usually doesn't have any windows or defensive towers for players to shoot from. On top of that, the tall dinosaur gates surrounding the base blocks all vantage points for defenders to see. Attackers can take cover behind the gates and defenders will have a hard time shooting at them.

Building more defensible structures such as walls that defenders can walk across seem like a better option.

here are some examples

Castle crenelations for defenders to take cover.

Towers on the walls that stick out to allow more firing angles.

machicolations in order to fire down on the enemy

Even advanced pvp players don't seem to build castle like defenses. Do you think making realistic defensive structures are practical in Ark? Are structures just too easy to be blown up to make sense, or does offline raiding happen too much for players to bother making defensive structures they can use.

 

 

Need to update your photobucket account to see the pics 

[MikeLitorus]

To help answer the question, yes destruction in this game is very cheap, 

So even though strategic structures CAN help defend an area, the majority of pvp servers are non orp (offline raid protection). On those servers bases are raided offline 99.9% of the time. 

I have been pushing on forums to get some of the obvious orp exploits fixed, but without orp, building anything out in the open where it can be seen, or building bigger than it needs to be, is wasted time and resources. 

On an ORP server, the castle style defence could be a real asset. 

So yes to answer your question much shorter, your building something you KNOW is going to get raided while your offline. thats why its not creative. 

 

[ChilliBean]

I do pve not pvp because i dont like to lose things, but i do like castle type defenses.  They just look better imo, though the xplants do keep predators away.  My rag base lacks the xplants because I am too lazy to mantain two servers at the same time.

[johnm81]

11 hours ago, Matt6123 said:

On pvp servers players usually just build large square buildings dotted with turrets. Then they surround their building with dinosaur gates. I was wondering if this was really the best way to defend a base.

First the square box usually doesn't have any windows or defensive towers for players to shoot from. On top of that, the tall dinosaur gates surrounding the base blocks all vantage points for defenders to see. Attackers can take cover behind the gates and defenders will have a hard time shooting at them.

Building more defensible structures such as walls that defenders can walk across seem like a better option.

here are some examples

Castle crenelations for defenders to take cover.

Towers on the walls that stick out to allow more firing angles.

 

machicolations in order to fire down on the enemy

Even advanced pvp players don't seem to build castle like defenses. Do you think making realistic defensive structures are practical in Ark? Are structures just too easy to be blown up to make sense, or does offline raiding happen too much for players to bother making defensive structures they can use.

 

 

 

 

 

Here is a question that might answer your question....

What invention came about that made castle fortifications obsolete in the 13th century?

Hint:

 

And in Ark we have:

Which makes things even worse for our castle dreams...

[Arkasaurio]

They may not look like it, but I think PvP bases are very similar to castles.

Outer wall of gates = moat/other geography to slow invaders down.

Turret towers / other static defense = battlements, castle turrets, etc.

Inner box = Keep

My thought on why people don't tend to build themselves good cover for sniping is that it's more effort than it ends up being worth (though I absolutely still do it, when I can). If you manage to be online for a raid, it seems like most of the fighting happens with dinos so cover, aside from running around the the central box or towers doesn't really apply. In fact, the best way to defend, if you can pull it off, is probably bed teleport and attack the invaders at their fob or at least from the back side while they're trying to drain turrets.

[Campi]

To compare it to the real world: There is a reason civilizations stopped building castles around the time strong explosives and rifles came along. Castles are only good against primitive weapons and stone catapults. Nowadays bunkers look like big cement blocks if they are above ground level - kinda like what is being built ingame also mostly 

[Matt6123]

Well rpg's can be shot down with turrets. People can still use c4  but they would have to get close to the walls in range of more turrets.

I think castles/forts are still viable. They serve as a platforms to shoot from instead of being an impenetrable wall.

[KoondoggOfRagnarok]

I do pve not pvp because i dont like to lose things, but i do like castle type defenses.  They just look better imo, though the xplants do keep predators away.  My rag base lacks the xplants because I am too lazy to mantain two servers at the same time.

Same here i like playing pve for the same reason and i love castle building i wish we had castle building structures. I hate building on structures that are already there because it doesnt seem to be even with the structures you put in place. Some ruins the floor is crooked making it difficult to build. The good ruins they do have cannot be built on or renovated. We need castle building mod for ps4 and xbox because pc already has the mod. Also i would like to have ship building mod that is also on pc but not on xbox or ps4.i would love to sail the ocean in a galli or galleon. The simple raft sucks because its hard to make a square raft into a ship. I mean it looks more like a floating house then a bouat. Key example bottom pic. Tell me if that looks like a boat to you. On another subject i cant wait for Structures plus to be released on console as well. It sucks that pc has all the good mods. We console owners always get the shaft.

[Demigod]

i believe that with the given time and resources a castle-style defense would be much more effective that traditional box-turret defense. depends on how willing you are to devote your time into it. 

[Kennejm]

On legacy we built a typical box base but it had the entire top row of walls as windows with boxes of guns/ammo and crossbows/flame arrows.   Would have helped a lot for even one guy online defending against a raid,  but we jumped to new servers and never got to use it.