Offense tactics

This page details strategies to defeat the enemy in offensive attacks. For repelling raiders, see Defense tactics.

While offense means attacking the enemies, this doesn't mean you cannot use defensive tactics as well. Upon entering enemy territory, the first behavior your characters will have is to wander around their arriving zone for a while before they start to perform as you set them to work for daily life. Which is the same behavior raiders have when they attack you as well.

Attacking enemies does not mean you have to go fight right away. Enemies will remain roaming around their base initially and then come at you. The time it takes them to engage you may even extend to a full day, and they even go to sleep which is an advantage so long as your own soldiers are well rested and the fight does not take too long before your fighters start to lack rest. Because contact is not immediate, you can have the time enough to build your own base within their map, if you brought the resources or can drop pod them in.

Spawned at bottom-right corner with lucky terrain feature advantage, mountain cover to the North and slow ground with water to the West. Their offense was immediate and didn't give time to prepare but otherwise you can build traps and sandbags while harvesting and chopping.

One common concern may be counting their numbers, but always remember that once around half of them are defeated, the remaining survivors will flee, so its fine to mind yourself as if there were fewer of them. If planned carefully, you can choose those who will flee, taking out the most dangerous ones first and leaving lesser ones to clean up later or vice-versa.

Offense team composition

Your attack team may be different depending on what you will be attacking, and the strategies you will be using against them.

Equipment

One thing in common is that your soldier should be well armed. This includes the following:

• All soldiers:
  • Full armor (simple helmets or advanced helmets plus armor vests, power armor if available)
  • Good weapons (Normal or above quality for everything)
• Snipers:
  • High-shooting skill
  • Bolt-action rifles or sniper rifles
• Brawlers:
  • Shield belts plus spears or longswords

For example, a good armor set without costing any plasteel can be as follows:

• Simple helmet
• Armor vest
• Devilstrand clothing
  • Dusters, button-down shirts and pants

This will net you at least 60% overall sharp protection, while with quality craftsmanship you may even have 80%. It's also affordable, costing 190 steel, 185 devilstrand and 2 components in total- easy enough for a mid-game colony.

Without using power armor, you can take on 2 enemy pirates safely for every well-armed soldier you have. Any more and there is a high risk of someone being downed or killed.

Base attack

As bases are the most well-defended of anything you can attack, you will need to bring your best forces to attack them.

A good base assault team should consist of:

• 11 - 15 soldiers in total
• 2-3 brawlers
• 3-5 snipers

An all-sniper composition is a bad idea against bases or outposts as they can't deal enough damage to shoot down the attackers.

Outpost attack

Outposts are smaller, hence you won't need that many people to attack it. Still, you should be geared to face some formidable enemies.

A good outpost assault team can comprise of:

• 8 - 12 soldiers in total
  • 6 total is possible but very risky
• 1-2 brawlers
• 3-4 snipers
• Rest should be high-DPS gunners

Turret assault

Turreted outposts are a trivial threat, with only a couple lone enemies guarding it in addition to the turrets. The main point here is to lure out the enemy to attack, then make them flee so you can neutralize the turrets by claiming them.

A good turret assault team should have:

• 3 - 5 soldiers in total
• 1 brawler
• 2-3 snipers
• Rest can be high-DPS gunners

An alternative composition can be as follows:

• 1 - 2 snipers
• 1 - 2 brawlers

This composition is about getting enemies out then swarming them, with the sniper staying out of range while the brawlers down the enemy.

An all-sniper or brawler composition also works here.

Alternative strategies

Other team compositions if you don't think the regular way is fun and are looking for new ways to exact revenge against pirates.

Melee charge

The composition to use if you are angry at pirates for sending melee charges. Simply make everyone in your team be shielded melee brawlers, then charge at the enemy. It's better to swarm individual targets first, rather than taking on the whole defending force at once.

Once your brawlers hit someone, the rest will charge in to help out, so be careful.

It is also optimized for a drop pod attack against them, by landing right in the center.

You will need around:

• 9 - 14 brawlers for base attacks
• 5 - 8 for outposts
• 2 - 4 for turrets

If you like, you can have a sniper in the mix to lure the enemy out and pop shots at important targets.

Note that this strategy means that your colonists are much more likely to receive injury, so be prepared for such.

Kiting snipers

Since there's plenty of space in the map, you can conduct a kite by withering them down with deadly sniper fire while the enemy try and fail to chase you down. This is slower and harder than a direct assault but allows you to defeat the base with fewer people, when used correctly.

All snipers should equip the sniper rifle due to its extremely long-range, and be boosted in some manner in speed, such as through bionic legs or go-juice. After firing 1 to 2 shots, run until you're outside the enemy's range, then fire again. Repeat until enemies flee.

You will need around:

• 4 - 6 snipers for bases
• 3 - 5 for outposts
• 1 - 2 for turrets

Medical support

Since you're very likely to receive injuries during an offensive assault, and you may also find desirable prisoners, you will need to bring at least 1 doctor (who is preferably a soldier as well), and plenty of medicine to patch up the wounded.

Expect to use up to 20 medicine after a battle, if it went horribly against you.

Strategies

Luring out

Enemies holed up in their base will have the cover advantage on their side, as well as additional defenses such as turrets. To counter this, lure them out using long-range fire. Once they start to assault your colonists, set up defensive positions at a distance away from the enemy. They will be forced to use stone chunks or walls as cover (same as you), negating their advantage. It also allows you to stay out of reach of enemy turrets.

Melee gank

If you see lone enemies, single them out and eliminate them using your brawlers. Afterwards, retreat to allow your shields to regenerate.

Split flanking

All hostiles while centered at their base will remain together at first and then move towards in a same direction against you. Before entering their map, you can split your caravan so that you enter from different corners and take them from the sides or behind. So long as one pawn is in the map, the generated base and terrain will not change. It's possible to make them all rush to a single corner and then make all other groups take their base, while leaving enemies in the open and then have the solo bait re-zone to another convenient corner to join the main group. Pay attention to their characters, melee and ranged as they all rush in a big block without any level of organization which allows you to take them down one by one.

Stampede

Train your offensive animals for "Release" command, then assign them to owners, leaving out pack animals. You will lose some but if you have been breeding them enough at your home farm, their loss won't affect you much, since they will keep breeding and replenishing their numbers. All enemies will be drawn to them for the bait and you can attack them from behind. Big animals such as elephants may even survive and be strong enough for a second run.

Alternatively, you can easily target the enemy base, centered right in the middle of the map, for your animals to be run over. Since animals of burden are slower than humans, you can zone out leaving them behind and then re-zone-in. This can make your party re-appear on a different side of the map from where you left, oddly enough, and your animals who were left behind will attempt to re-join you. Make their pathing be drawn over the enemy base (or create an animal zone behind them).

Turret ownership

When humanoid enemies are defeated to the point of fleeing, instead of destroying the turrets, you can simply claim them and turn them to your side. The turrets will proceed to turn on the enemies from behind, shooting them while they are fleeing.

You will have to claim the turrets if you are to use the now-destroyed base for rest as the turrets will still be loyal to their previous masters and fire on you.

Mortars

Sometimes you can find a mortar or two situated in the base.

They are mostly an ineffective defense against your attacks, as they rarely hit and take a relatively long time to reload, which by then you would have already defeated the raiders. Sometimes they will even cause friendly fire. Still, grouping your colonists too close together is risky as an unlucky shot from the mortar can hit many of your soldiers.

By some weird quirk enemies manning mortars aren't affected by panic fleeing so you will need to close in on them to finish them off. Choose brawlers with shields to pick them of as their shields can block the bullets from the turrets effectively, or snipers that can hit the mortar outside of turret range.

If you plan to rush a mortar without snipers or brawlers, aim to stand somewhere outside the turrets' range, yet is within the mortar's blind spot.

If you have soldiers standing right outside the blind spot, inaccuracy and area damage can still cause the mortar shell to hit someone within the blind spot.

Artifacts

You can bring artifacts such as the psychic insanity lance, psychic shock lance or psychic animal pulser which are handy but somewhat costly and hard to find. You can get some for free by opening ancient structures.

Psychic insanity lance

Can be used to drive an enemy berserk. Good for distraction as the berserk enemy will proceed to lash out at their comrades, and in the process may also deal some damage.

It's best that you use it on a melee pawn with a shield belt.

Psychic shock lance

Not as useful in an offense situation, given that base defenders don't use mega weapons. Still useful for downing a person you want to capture, but expect brain damage.

Psychic animal pulser

The most dangerous of the artifacts, this drives all the animals in the map into a manhunter rage. The animals will quickly clear out the enemy defenders and turrets.

To use this, you will need to construct a room to lock all the animals out. Be quick or the enemy may attack before you finish. Afterwards, just hide in the room, and activate the pulser. Then, just watch the animals swarm and overwhelm the enemy defenses. Remember to bring more food for you'll be locked in for quite some time.

The 24 hours countdown may start soon after an outpost has been destroyed, and any still ravaging animal will need to be put down before you can gather all precious items to your convoy. You may have to deal with a large pack if the initial number was high.

Aftermath

Taking prisoners

You may convert one of the already-present structures into a makeshift prison barracks to hold prisoners in battle. Just put down some sleeping spots, and set them for prisoner use.

Treatment

As mentioned before, you need doctors and medicine to heal the injured or fallen. While you don't need medicine for treatment, it's still recommended to bring some.

If possible, bring the patient to rest in a clean room. Treatment there reduces the chance of infection.

In many places, wild healroot can be gathered. This can be used for proper treatment, or stretch out your quality medicine supply and save them for later use. If you're lucky you may also come across medicine stocks in the enemy base. Feel free to use them.

Stripping

You don't need to strip corpses as you can directly choose which clothes to take from them in the caravan reform menu. However, for downed enemies, it's best to strip them first so you can recover their clothing intact.

Most clothing you find is worthless due to the dead man's apparel modifier diminishing a large part of their value. You can still recover shield belts without this modifier, which you can take as your own without much issues.

Resource gathering

Berries and agave fruit may be harvested from the surroundings, while meat can be hunted from animals or found in enemy food stocks. These can be cooked over a campfire or a fueled stove if you have the steel, so you can extend your food stocks.

Components may be found in compacted machinery in the surrounding hills. Mining them is a good source of components for crafting or construction.

Dismantling the structures of the enemy may yield steel or components. It's not recommended to bring steel along with you due to its heavy weight and ease of obtaining outside scavenging.

Work prioritization

So far the game uses the same work tab to assign roles while within base and while invading too. This presents a few inconveniences, most :

• Firefight: This is an assignment useless for offense, mostly when given priority 1 as you don't want your pawns to start putting the fire out that was caused by incendiary weapons, it is not your base. It is however useful if you want to try and salvage items to sell.
• Clean: Again, while this assignment is one of the last, if given priority 1 over other tasks, it can become another inconvenience as we don't want them to remove wall rubble.

This can be countered by removing the Home area if any are added. Since you are invading, the home area shouldn't be present by default.

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Guides

Progression

Quickstart Guides • Basics • Intermediate Midgame Guide • Advanced Endgame Guide • Ending the game

Scenarios

Lost Tribe Guide • Rich Explorer Guide • Naked Brutality Guide • The Mechanitor Guide

Survival

Extreme Heat Guide • Extreme Cold Guide • Extreme Desert Guide • Ice Sheet Guide • Sea Ice Guide • Events Guide

Combat

Defense tactics • Offense tactics • Weapon Guide

Construction

Colony Building Guide • Defense structures

Production

Food production • Money making guide

Other

Skill Training • Permadeath save conversion guide •
Ideology Min-Maxing