Hounds on a boat? Late game options

[Hekateras]

Decided to go sailing on, like, day 150 in my current server and I'm finding that the hound attacks are limiting exploration quite seriously. Early game, tanking a few hounds on a boat wouldn't be a problem, but this is late game and the hound attacks come easily every five days, in huge numbers, and with very little advance warning. Plus, you have seasonal hounds to deal with, which means either getting frozen when you can't dodge, or having the contents of your boat set immediately on fire.

I'm curious what people think about how to deal with this. Essentially all strategies for dealing with late-game hounds boil down to either "divide and conquer" (use something to slow them down or disperse them or distract them, then kite and tank them one at a time) and/or "choose your battlefield": lure them into beefalo, or spiders, or a tooth trap field or corridor. I've always disliked how heavily the latter option is promoted, I find that it discourages late game exploration or travel and traps you in your base if you want a decent change at surviving a hound attack consistently and with minimal damage, but I digress.

Both of these options aren't available when they attack you in the middle of open water. You can't run, you don't have room to dodge, there is nothing there to distract them and with how frequent hound waves are and how little warning you get, "just be on land when they attack" isn't really an option if you're determined to actually use the sailing mechanic late game. Fire hounds are tricky too. Even if you can spare a flingomatic for the boat, it's only going to put the fire out after it's there, and after you've probably taken damage from it because everything is so close by on the boat. Likewise, someone told me "just don't sail during summer/fall when there's firehounds" and I think that's equally silly. There should be options for dealing with this that don't boil down to "just don't do it".

I guess you could hit them with blowdarts from afar but that still leaves VERY little room for error and is very risky, as I see it, if you fail to get nearly all of them as they come. As soon as you're crowded by hounds on your boat and have nowhere to go, it's practically over. (Putting aside the fact that I'm playing mostly solo on a Large world here, still haven't explored all the map and have not yet found a single swamp, which is part of the reason I'm going sailing in the first place.) So even if blowdarts would help, it shouldn't be the only solution because it's not always available.

[Marthan]

Hound attacks as a whole need a rework, they are not even a challenge at late game, just an annoyance that punishes you for staying away from your trap area, and if you were already near your trap area they are just free meat and gems...

The sea could have their own "hounds", maybe enemies that try to attack your boat instead of the player, so the player is not forced to fight on a small area.

Weapons that you could place into your boat similarly how you would place a mast, stuff like mounted harpoons or cannons, could be a nice way to improve combat on the sea.

[Hekateras]

1 hour ago, Marthan said:

Hound attacks as a whole need a rework, they are not even a challenge at late game, just an annoyance that punishes you for staying away from your trap area, and if you were already near your trap area they are just free meat and gems...

This. Either you're prepared for them and they're easy pickings, and thus just an annoying distraction, or you're not (or caught at a bad time)

Interesting idea. I could see either boat weapons or more environmental ways to fight them being helpful. Weapons would probably be the simplest to implement within the limits of what's already there.

[YouKnowWho]

There's always water balloons for that fire hound part. Other than that, I agree that things aren't exactly pitch perfect as they are now. 

One solution I've thought of could do with something like an animal repeller. Something you stick on the boat that keeps dogs from hopping on the boat. They'd still follow you though, so you'd pretty much just be delaying the attack until you reach land. 

Seabases would have a pretty big advantage if exploited though, so it shouldn't be a permanent fixture, though maybe refuel-able with something you find on land. Maybe a new plant? Crockpot recipe? I dunno. I'm not exactly an expert on what repels dogs.

Just an idea though. 

[Hekateras]

I have never used water balloons but you would need to throw them, right? In which case 1) same problem as with flingo, things are already on fire, 2) I dont' imagine it's easy to throw them at the same time as fighting the hounds. :/

Animal repeller is a neat idea!

[-Variant]

2 hours ago, YouKnowWho said:

There's always water balloons for that fire hound part. Other than that, I agree that things aren't exactly pitch perfect as they are now. 

One solution I've thought of could do with something like an animal repeller. Something you stick on the boat that keeps dogs from hopping on the boat. They'd still follow you though, so you'd pretty much just be delaying the attack until you reach land. 

Seabases would have a pretty big advantage if exploited though, so it shouldn't be a permanent fixture, though maybe refuel-able with something you find on land. Maybe a new plant? Crockpot recipe? I dunno. I'm not exactly an expert on what repels dogs.

Just an idea though. 

Oh my God I love this way too much.

Just like, having a bunch of Hounds slowly swimming towards you, but refusing to get on your boat...

Augh, love it!

[Brago-sama]

If you have a spare panflute and have minions aboard just hide in a Bush hat until all the dogs spawn, play sleepytime, let them agro on a pigman and play the flute to kill them one by one.

Granted I haven't played the beta, I feel this might be a good strat.

[HeatAndRun]

thulecite crown

bramble trap

bramble husk

fellow Wendy crew with abigail

[CameoAppearance]

Summer and autumn hound attacks are a much bigger problem here than winter and spring ones. AOE attacks and the Thulecite Crown for protection against stunlocking/freezing are great for killing a dozen hounds that are all trying to attack you on a boat the size of a dining room table, but when the fire hounds die they explode and set your entire boat on fire. If you have a stationary water base you might be able to isolate an area to put your traps on, but that's not remotely practical for a boat that's actually being used as a mode of transportation, especially since you need multiple captains working together in order to sail more than one boat along the same route.

Ranged weapons can hit hounds while they're still in the water, but they swim a lot faster than a boat sails (except if you spawn in like 20 masts, anyhow) so you'd have to get a lot of damage into them on sight in order to take out red hounds from a safe distance. I think Winona's catapult auto-targets hounds and I know the Houndius Shooticus does, but a single boat doesn't have enough room for multiple turrets, a generator to power the Winona turrets, and other structures you'd want for a long sea voyage. Players wielding blowdarts and fire staves could maybe do it in theory but they'd have to be a lot better coordinated than most people realistically are.

I'd say a stack of water balloons is a must-have if you're sailing on the open ocean during a late-game fire hound season. Usually I carry an ice staff anyway in case of wildfires or whatever, but a lot of fires packed into a small space will use it up way too fast. A flingo's not a bad choice either, but it takes up a lot of space and uses valuable gears.

Alternately, you could risk your own neck to save your incredibly flammable boat: drop anchor, stow anything too valuable (or too sinkable) to drop in the water in your backpack or a chest on the boat, and abandon ship. Hopefully you'll wash up somewhere more defensible, and later when the coast is clear you can make a cheap burner boat and row back out to your parking spot. This might suck if you're playing as Maxwell, admittedly, but the max-health hit is something most characters can shrug off (and you're probably not hard up for booster shot materials once you get back to your base) and getting soaking wet is semi-helpful in summer because it lessens overheating. Maybe less helpful if you're playing WX-78 or struggling to keep your sanity above critical, but, well.

[-Variant]

Just tell the Hounds no.

They must ask consent before attacking you.

Joke aside Hound repellent would be perfect.

[Hekateras]

11 hours ago, HeatAndRun said:

thulecite crown

bramble trap

bramble husk

fellow Wendy crew with abigail

1. No caves

2. No Hamlet DLC

3. The first time this happened was with Wendy and Abigail next to me, actually, didn't help. Still died pretty instantly from the fire damage.

 

@CameoAppearance Those are some nice tips. Again, though, abandoning ship to wash up somewhere more defensible every five days? Eh. That strat sounds like by the time you'd make it back to your boat to continue travelling, it'd be time for the next wave.

[-Variant]

10 hours ago, Hekateras said:

2. No Hamlet DLC

 

Not my place to step in on this convo so ignore me.

Spoiler

You don't need the DLC for Bramble traps, just Wormwood, in which yes, the DLC can help you acquire him but you can also purchase or weave him. Though, neither of these options are really ideal to invest into when it comes to Hounds.

 

[CameoAppearance]

12 hours ago, Hekateras said:

@CameoAppearance Those are some nice tips. Again, though, abandoning ship to wash up somewhere more defensible every five days? Eh. That strat sounds like by the time you'd make it back to your boat to continue travelling, it'd be time for the next wave.

It's definitely not worth doing for every hound wave, it's really more of a last resort if you get caught unprepared on the open ocean.

I'm not sure why you would spend long enough at sea, completely out of reach of land, that you'd need to fight off multiple hound waves during your voyage; the lunar island isn't that far away and by the late game you should have either found it or mapped enough of the mainland to guess where it is, not to mention being able to afford to build more than one or two masts for your boat. That's on default worldgen settings, at least; maybe long sea voyages are more of a factor if you're using the maximum map size.

Sea bases are an exception, but if you have a sea base you can probably set a boat or two aside and fill it with tooth traps/bramble traps and an ice flingomatic.

[AdventZen]

>day 150
>hasn't explored the entire map

not saying this is wrong, just unusual

-I'm not entirely sure how Hounds interact with walls at sea, but you could line your boat's borders with fossils, as even if they attack those, they can't destroy them.
-Alternatively, Thulecite gear is perfect for Crowd Control, as the Crown gives you a force-field every few seconds, and the Club summons allied tentacles. This won't help you with the Fire Hounds, but given their very nature, nothing besides fire-retardants will :v
-Also, yeah, you can weave Wormwood for 2700 spools, allowing you to craft Bramble Husks, which are amazing for Crowd Control, especially on tight spaces.

[Hekateras]

Is it really that weird to not have explored everything by day 150? Granted, my base location could be better, but it's a Large world, I played it mostly solo, or very rarely with company that was new to the game and needed taking care of. Plus I enjoy base-building slightly more than rote exploration...

@CameoAppearance Honestly, hounds in late game can attack as often as three days. You don't even need to be on a boat for that long to be caught by one.

I'll summarise the specific tips gathered in this thread and their pros/cons: (I'm omitting the strategies unique to specific characters like Wormwood or Winona or Wendy, since that shouldn't be a prerequisite for surviving hounds consistently)

• Blowdarts, electric blowdarts (requires canaries), (needs to be quick/well-coordinated, large stockpiles needed if you want them to last for 2-3 waves)
• Panflute + Bush hat (very doable, but mandrakes are limited per map so this won't work indefinitely)
• Thulecite gear/crown (requires Caves and prior Cave exploration)
• Flingomatic (requires gears, may be too slow to prevent damage, takes up space)
• Water balloons/ice staff (can't use them to put out fires and fight at the same time)
• Lots of masts, ideally be speedy enough that you can reach land in time if a hound wave comes or not have to spend too much time on the water in the first place (requires lots of silk, which shouldn't be a problem late game). Though technically, this is just an extension of the "don't be on a boat" IMHO non-solution.
• Shootius Houndius (requires Caves and deerclops eyeball. Takes up boat space. May not be fast enough unless you install multiples? Ironically, if you can get multiple eyeballs to cover both weather-survival and hound defense needs for your base AND boat, you probably don't need help surviving hounds anyway...)

It's not a bad variety, though I can't help but feel that almost all of them are, if not inadequate, then at least very risky. And none of these seem like they would consistently help against fire hounds.

I'll throw in/reiterate some suggestions for new features:

• Hound repellent, suggested by YouKnowWho. They follow your boat but won't attack until you're on land.
• Mobs/environment features at sea you could use against the hounds? Like a Kraken or sea monster area that responds to movement, so you could safely paddle/drift onto it, but fast-swimming hounds would get attacked. Or some version of swamp tentacles, but at sea.
• Flame retardant boat finish. Would be craftable and something you apply to your boat and have to occasionally reapply, as it would naturally degrade with time. (Might need a separate icon like for boat "health"?) Could either completely prevent fire or force everything to 'smoulder' (for quite a long time) first, even if you directly set fire to it. So you could skip making and applying it at your own risk, but it would be available for this precise situation of when you want to sail during the summer or fall.

I think the last option might make the most sense mechanic-wise without significantly changing the balance, at least when it comes to fire hounds. A mix of the other tips would do for regular hounds. Probably.

[AdventZen]

Just checked my suggestion, it is doable: 

This still needs a boatload (pun intended) of optimizing, but it is doable, and buys you as much time as you need to reach the shore (where they'll proceed to end your career, fair enough)

FOR CAVELESS WORLDS: End Tables can be crafted once you acquire their Blueprint (hammer the naturally spawning Stagehand 86 times), and have the same indestructable properties as fossils. It is more resource-intensive, but late-game that shouldn't be too much of a problem.

FOR STRUCTURE PLACEMENT: place masts, anchors and steering wheel in the middle first, and litter the border with End Tables/Fossils.


I am aware this is not early-game friendly, and requires some planning, but it is a one-time effort, caveless-doable way to secure your personal boat AND/OR Sea-Base late-game.
(As a fellow Large-World Solo player, not having the entire map cleared out by day 150 is not weird, what bugged me a bit was the fact ya haven't found a swamp yet, but I understand your preference for base-building ^^)

Hope this helps, please report back any oddities or shortcomings of the strat, if you do use it