Self test vs Robbery.

monkey · 2014-03-04 00:59:32

I've gotten OK at petty theft, spending $100 to get $200, spending that to get $500, then spending half of that to get $900 and so on, gradually building my cash, always playing it safe.

It seems the deadliest thing that anyone can do against me in this game is to die in my house with a > $6k bounty, because my starter house isn't designed to hold so much, so I have to spend it *now* and in the course of upgrading it I die.

Every. Single. Time.

Even using lights and Chihuahuas in new areas, some minor wiring alteration for the expansion will cause a previously working part to stop working "just so" and my finely tuned trap kills me dead. Or I'll swap out the Chihuahuas for Pitbulls, only to forget to swap lights back to electric floors in some other part of the map, but my solution relies on those dogs getting fried and dead again. Or I'll add some armour cladding to wiring, but a dog trailing 4 squares behind will get snagged on it because I stepped left one square too early, and now the timing is out and dead AGAIN?! Or I'll move the shotgun to test one thing, then get into the habit of taking the shortcut past the wife, only to replace it once that area is tight, start working on something else then mistakenly take the shortcut 20 minutes later and #%$@&*!!

Not counting suicide / Santa runs, I reckon the ratio of my deaths is around 10:1 to my own house. I've never had a house worth more that $10k because that first big bounty always kills me. I think of all those poor people who got sucker punched by my traps and lost several days work, only for me to throw their hard work away by contributing their hard won funds towards some Darwin Award level assisted suicide.

I cant be the only one, right? How deadly are your newly modified houses, vs everyone elses?

Amatiel · 2014-03-04 01:08:48

Follow these rules to the letter..... no exceptions

CASTLE DOCTRINE: THE RULES OF SELF PRESERVATION
- NEVER hold movement buttons down, always move one step at a time
- ALWAYS pause after opening a door
- ALWAYS remove ALL lethality when testing a house (amendment: including fucking pits)
- ALWAYS fully complete a testing run before introducing lethality for final run
- IF I'm feeling impatient or bothered... walk away
- ALWAYS do a full non-lethal test after changing ANY wiring
- ALWAYS take your time and be methodical
- IF in doubt, walk out

monkey · 2014-03-04 01:24:22

Amatiel wrote:

Follow these rules to the letter..... no exceptions
- IF I'm feeling impatient or bothered... walk away

Just not for more than 5 minutes.
I've been killed by timeout in self test a couple of times as well.

Suedeo · 2014-03-04 02:02:17

I think self tests are more dangerous than robberies, because houses grow more and more complex and nawrsty as they develop.

I think you should take a piecemeal approach to your house addons - work on whatever you consider "one piece" and add it to the house, master it, and self test it. Now it's locked in and you can do the next part. Take a (mandatory) break in edit mode, not out on the street! You could also do up your entire masterpiece outline in wood, then go back and, ahem, weaponize it, and then upgrade the walls as money continues to flow in from your early traps.

Amatiel · 2014-03-04 06:18:20

WOW. My house atm is very complicated and i expect when its fully done that will be able to safely hold 50-70K no worries...

Even still i can pass self test in just under ten minutes.

WTF have u constructed that is making you time out bro?

RevealingGekco · 2014-03-04 08:31:45

Suedeo wrote:

I think self tests are more dangerous than robberies, because houses grow more and more complex and nawrsty as they develop.
I think you should take a piecemeal approach to your house addons - work on whatever you consider "one piece" and add it to the house, master it, and self test it. Now it's locked in and you can do the next part. Take a (mandatory) break in edit mode, not out on the street! You could also do up your entire masterpiece outline in wood, then go back and, ahem, weaponize it, and then upgrade the walls as money continues to flow in from your early traps.

Not to mention the whole 'no tools' thing - even that simple, cheap-to-bypass grate/pitbull is game over during self test.

I do the whole modular design thing and I still disarm all the preceding modules to be safe on edits in later modules. If the room i'm focusing on 'doesn't work' for some reason, I need to be able to travel back to the start, which is impossible when all the preceding 'commits' are deadly. I did an edit on my vault room the other day and it's one of more time-consuming things I do in this game (making edits, disarming the whole goddamn house, doing a run or two to make sure it's safe, re-arming the house, saying a tiny prayer, etc).

monkey · 2014-03-04 09:02:26

Well, I managed to spend 110k without killing myself just now by making the dumbest house ever.

mala · 2014-03-04 09:03:12

i found a partial solution to that,
my house is built one room at the time, each room is isolated from the rest of the house with concrete, plus the whole area is wired so that you need the initial energy flow to get trough (you break something, you need to bruteforce it all), that way whenever i add something i just have to fully test the new area without touching anything else.

About the "unexpected bounty problem" the only way to survive, is to plan ahead and be sure to check your house as much as you can till you reach the point it's unbreakable with 2k tools (1 electrified pit is normally enough since ladders are uncommon among suicide robbers.

here's an example from my last house

http://castledraft.com/editor/5Fxx40

it shows the first area, as you can see i try to use a single power source for each room, 9/10 robbers brick the chihuahua as soon as they see it than saw a wall to press buttons themselves, thus cutting power they need to open the pit.

If they have a saw, they don't have a ladder
if they have a ladder, they don't have enough water to pass the electric floor.

From that point on, you just have to worry about preventing bruteforce.

Plan > Build > Fortify > Upgrade > Fortify > Upgrade > Fortify... and so on

Hope it will help

Banakai · 2014-03-04 09:17:39

The thing I have problems with in the early game, is that if I make my house non-lethal, then I have to pay for the lethal stuff again.

mala · 2014-03-04 09:45:07

Banakai wrote:

The thing I have problems with in the early game, is that if I make my house non-lethal, then I have to pay for the lethal stuff again.

whenever you test something, you have to replace all the lethal stuff, but you DON'T have to TOUCH the vault once the test is over, you just go back and exit trough the front door.

That way the cost won't be applied and you can put all the lethal stuff back in place with no additional cost (plus you get a refund for lights chihuahuas and so on) then run the final test touching the vault and thus confirming all the changes you have made.

monkey · 2014-03-04 09:52:55

I guess my problem is in the nature of the traps that I make, everything is convoluted and hinges on precise activation timing of moving pets and family, often you need to charge into certain death, but something from 28 moves ago kicks in at the last second to toggle things for one turn. Mistime anything, or take one step wrong in the middle of a wide open area, and you don't get a second chance, but it's not usually a mis-step that kills me, it's when the power spills over from a different trap, or that pitbull which normally gets fried when you run the gauntlet didn't because I used lights, and now he's blocking my backup exit. The thing that kills me most, I think, is getting locked outside of my half built level with a chihuahua for company, there's no testing alternative for powered doors, since indicator lights let pets pass through.

RevealingGekco · 2014-03-04 10:29:48

monkey wrote:

The thing that kills me most, I think, is getting locked outside of my half built level with a chihuahua for company, there's no testing alternative for powered doors, since indicator lights let pets pass through.

If you need to block the pet you can put down a panic button, or a pit with a pet in it adjacent to the 'door' indicator light. It ain't perfect, but works in some situations.

LiteS · 2014-03-04 11:33:27

Here's a testing example... If I were testing Mala's house ( http://castledraft.com/editor/IlWbtD ) and I knew everything worked but the combo lock, this is what I would build to test it

http://castledraft.com/editor/wD8MhD

Note that I didn't change any key wiring or replace any conductive tiles with nonconductive ones.

Dogs can't step on panic buttons, so as long as I stay on that path I am 100% safe from surprise dogs. And since I know how to solve the rest of the house, I can just mash Undo and Ctrl Z after testing until the panic buttons are all gone.

For my house I just let robbers test my new traps to make sure they work by building branching paths and making no changes to the right path until I'm ready to move my vault to another section, like this.

http://castledraft.com/editor/AqZyS1

TheRealCheese · 2014-03-04 14:17:35

monkey wrote:

there's no testing alternative for powered doors, since indicator lights let pets pass through.

That's what NON-conducting lights are for.

RevealingGekco · 2014-03-04 14:58:05

TheRealCheese wrote:

monkey wrote:
there's no testing alternative for powered doors, since indicator lights let pets pass through.
That's what NON-conducting lights are for.

This still lets pets pass... And having a gaggle of chihuahuas (that otherwise would have been stuck behind the powered door) at your feet can mess up later puzzles by stepping on buttons and such.

TheRealCheese · 2014-03-04 14:59:58

I could have sworn the post was about current and not pets. Nevermind me, reading comprehension levels are close to 0 apparently.

The Castle Doctrine Forums

#1 2014-03-04 00:59:32

Self test vs Robbery.

#2 2014-03-04 01:08:48

Re: Self test vs Robbery.

#3 2014-03-04 01:24:22

Re: Self test vs Robbery.

#4 2014-03-04 02:02:17

Re: Self test vs Robbery.

#5 2014-03-04 06:18:20

Re: Self test vs Robbery.

#6 2014-03-04 08:31:45

Re: Self test vs Robbery.

#7 2014-03-04 09:02:26

Re: Self test vs Robbery.

#8 2014-03-04 09:03:12

Re: Self test vs Robbery.

#9 2014-03-04 09:17:39

Re: Self test vs Robbery.

#10 2014-03-04 09:45:07

Re: Self test vs Robbery.

#11 2014-03-04 09:52:55

Re: Self test vs Robbery.

#12 2014-03-04 10:29:48

Re: Self test vs Robbery.

#13 2014-03-04 11:33:27

Re: Self test vs Robbery.

#14 2014-03-04 14:17:35

Re: Self test vs Robbery.

#15 2014-03-04 14:58:05

Re: Self test vs Robbery.

#16 2014-03-04 14:59:58

Re: Self test vs Robbery.

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