The problem with the stone changes is that it makes the only buildings resistant to wildlife easy to blow in to. Puckle guns aren't a real defence. They have a tiny horizontal arc a tinyer vertical arc and if there is lag they straight up don't fire. They have a range of about 15 feet hit less hard then a carbine and if there is lag they pretty much don't fire and if they do, they don't hit.
Now I agree I don't want this game to turn into Ark where ever base has turrets on every single open surface.
But short of that we need real defensive deterants. Thus comes my fantastic idea.
Historically speaking Walls on a coastal fort were thick. Not 6 inches thick like the stone wall in game. We're talking several meters thick. That is what we need.
So my suggestion is...
Fortifications
They should be a full foundation thick , 1x1. they should not be hollow.They should be at least 3-6 walls high or come with height variants with varying cost. They should either automatically mesh with the terrain to make sure there are no holes or they should reach several walls deep into the ground mesh to prevent odd little holes from uneven terrain They should have a gate variant similarly difficult to get through something that will fit all animals. They should have spiked surfaces to prevent easily grappling/climbing picking over them. They should be exceedingly difficult to blast through cannons or no. You should be able to fit cannons and other defences on the top.
Now you're thinking "That will just make these the new walls" Well not exactly. You can't build a building out of them. You can't put a proper ceiling over top and ceilings wont snap to them. You could take other preventative measures as well such as not being allowed to build stone style structures within 1 foundation distance of "Fortifications"
Point being if these are implemented properly at a cost that is preventative to spamming yet with a defensive benefit so high as to make them necessary you solve multiple problems at once
1. Massive sprawling bases will become a thing of the past as no one will want to build anything valuable outside of these walls.
2. You can keep the stone nerf and remove the increased cost.
3. Make bases more difficult to offline raid. Lets be honest. without a real offline raiding defence you need to do this and with the stone structure nerf virtually any single man with a bear cannon and 100 cannon balls can get into any base not on a mountain in about 15 minutes. It should be prohibitively difficult to wipe someone out competely. If it's not you get the problem Ark had. You play for a few weeks, you get wiped, you quit for six months.
4. Profit.
Also Penguins should have machine guns.
