Defense tactics

Template:UC Getting attacked, whether by tribals, pirates or hordes of angry animals is a common event in the rimworlds. Defense against these attacks is one of the keys to having a succesfful colony.

This page details different tactics for defense and visualizations of them.

Raiders

Raiders will attack randomly chosen constructed objects and colonists. They will not attack prisoners, natural rock walls (not the case for sappers, animals (unless the animals are hostile or tamed) or unpowered turrets. Raiders will usually set fire to crops in growing zones, power generation or conduits, walls, nutrient paste dispensers, equipment racks, orbital trade beacons; they will melee-attack lamps, beds, stools, short tables, long tables, and doors; they also use molotovs and frag grenades on turretss, sandbags, or other targets, and some use EMP grenades to stun your turrets. It is thus recommended to keep power generation, eating areas, lighting, doors, and walls near or behind a protected entrance. Raiders will prioritize firing on colonists or turrets when those colonists or turrets are firing on them, but will otherwise prioritize random objects, meaning you can put doors or walls near your defenses to temporarily distract them.

Raider Preparation

Raiders will sometimes start by standing around in a group where they spawned and will continue this until they see a colonist nearby or they hit a certain preparation time limit, at which point they begin the assault. Because a colonist can set them off early, you can plan out the time you want them to attack. It is generally best to set them off early if you're well-prepared, to avoid potentially troublesome scenarios such as having no power when their timer runs out. Conversely, you should not set them off early if your defense is not prepared. Note that raiders usually take less than one day to begin, meaning that if there is an eclipse and you rely on Solar generators, you should not wait for them and should instead set them off early while you still have some power left. Also it's good to note that raiders will remember where your traps are. This doesn't apply to other factions, though -- if, say, the Vipers of Power come in and sets off your traps, then they would remember that. But, if the Rippers of Fire later attack, they won't have that knowledge and will still set off the same traps.

Siege defense

When faced with a siege, there are a few coping strategies you can use.

You can choose to either to assault the mortar base or wait it out and repair the damage as best as you can. The choice mainly depends on the surroundings of the mortar base and your base's position. If your base is located under a mountain (your base tiles will read Overhead Mountain when you hover your cursor over them), the mortar shells won't be able to hit those tiles at all! This makes deep mining a very effective strategy against heavy bombardment. If you don't build your base into a mountain, you should at least consider digging out at least one panic room for your colonists to hide within from the shells.

If you assault their base, one possibility is sniping either the shells or the mortars, hoping an explosion kills many of the raiders. If you want to leave those intact, you can snipe the raiders themselves. Keep in mind that killing enough of them prompts them to assault your colony directly instead of continuing their siege.

A cheeky way to end a siege is to wait for the raiders to sleep, then simply uninstall and steal the mortars. This is rather hard to pull off, but can be worth it if you want some free mortars.

Countering with mortars

If you have your own mortars, you can use them to fire back at the raiders.

Regular mortars are not very good at countering sieges, given the inaccuracy; however, if you're lucky, you can always take out some of the raiders, or even the mortars.

Incendiary mortars are an effective way of distracting sieges as the raiders will be preoccupied with extinguishing the resultant flames. This way, 2 mortars are enough to keep them from doing any activity other than firefighting, unless it is raining or there are no flammables nearby.

EMP mortars are extremely efficient siege-breakers; they can easily detonate the mortar shells, killing nearby raiders, as well as stun the mortars, preventing them from firing. Sometimes only 1-2 shells are enough to prompt them to attack.

Mortar Tactics

A mortar attack on siege and raids can be effective while the attackers are still preparing. It's fun and most times raiders would flee before begin their assault due to huge losses of men during preparation.

Due to inaccuracy, it takes at least 4 mortars to be effective, and around 8 mortars will be enough for most attacks. Do note that each mortar needs its own shell storage, and mortar shells can stack up to 25. 200 shells for 8 mortars can work effectively enough for a mortar battery.

If you are short on manpower, you can automatically assign a colonist to fire 1 shot from each mortar. However mortars will not cool down unless there is someone manning it.

Note that personal shields can easily mitigate the damage from the mortars, so be careful when facing enemies equipped with these. EMP mortars are a good way of dealing with shields, as they instantly down them and have a much larger radius.

Melee charges

Pirates or Outlanders can come with all melee charges complete with personal shields. This can prove an extreme threat to colonies, especially as they charge towards the colonists directly with their personal shields blocking large amounts of gunfire.

However, they are often poorly equipped, aside from the shields; they aren't particularly well-clothed or armored, and their weapons are often of low quality. They are also highly vulnerable when their shields are down.

Ideally you will want to have a few brawlers on your own, preferably with better equipment, such as full armor and quality weapons to fight the incoming charge.

If you happen to not have enough brawlers to handle the charge, attempt to concentrate fire to break the shields, then kill any unshielded raiders. If they do come close, get your colonists to fire point-blank at them if it deals more damage than unarmed, otherwise assign 2 colonists to beat up each attacker.

Explosive weapons are not very useful on them due to their shields protecting them, but you can still try and break their shields with them.
Incendiary weapons penetrate the shield and set the raider on fire, distracting them. While their shields block gunfire, the distraction makes it easier for it to be broken, and makes there be fewer enemies engaging your colonists at a time.
EMP weapons can be used to devastating effect by downing their shields, leaving them to the mercy of your colonists' gunfire.

Mechanoid assaults

Mechanoids only come in 2 types, Scythers and Centipedes. They have much differing stats and weapons, meaning different tactics may be used.

In most raids where they come/ drop in at the edges, the Scythers will outrun the Centipedes by a great margin, giving plenty of time to deal with them before the centipedes.

Scythers

Scythers are capable of long-range sniping attacks, and are extremely deadly with melee. If fighting it from a distance, cover along with long-ranged weapons such as sniper rifles or survival rifles are vital.

Despite its high melee damage, sometimes melee fighting it may be better, as long as you have good armor and weapons.

Centipedes

Centipedes, on the other hand, specialize in crowd control and area denial; the Minigun and Heavy charge blaster can annihilate groups of colonists, while the Inferno cannon sets your colonists ablaze and burns down your base if not careful. They are incredibly durable, sporting thick armor and high health, and can take many hits before they can be downed.

Centipedes wielding the Minigun and Heavy Charge Baster can be cheesed simply by making a lone colonist, preferably with a personal shield, stand in front of your other colonists. The centipede will target that colonist, but be unable to hit it due to the forced miss radii. Watch out for friendly fire.
The Inferno cannon is not as destructive towards your colonists, but is annoying to deal with. Keep watch on your colonists at all times, and remember to send them back into cover when needed. As a precaution, build your base out of non-flammable materials to prevent large-scale fires erupting all over your colony.

Engaging it in melee is not recommended due to its armor, high health and heavy damage.

Tribal raids

Tribal raiders come in large numbers, but with relatively poor equipment; as such, it may require different strategy compared to pirate or outlander raids.

Overall, they can deal heavy damage to your colonists; they do not have good weapons, but compensate with their sheer numbers.
However, as tribalwear does not provide protection and they do not wear any form of armor, they are easier to kill individually than other raiders.

Crowd control is an important aspect in defeating tribal raids. The Minigun or LMG is an effective weapon to use as it can easily mow down groups of raiders.

Explosive weapons are also useful in crowd control.

Explosive mortars, while inaccurate, can easily destroy a sizable group of tribals at once if they hit.
Grenades can hit archers hiding behind cover, though you have to risk a colonist or two in order to even get close enough to throw them.

Their archers are dangerous; their bows can be fired from a somewhat long distance, their pila can easily kill or incapacitate a colonist, and they always come in a large volley. As with most defensive strategies, cover is essential when fighting them.

Removing rock chunks also helps in dealing with tribal raiders hiding behind them, making them much easier to hit.

Dealing with Explosives

Raiders wielding explosives can be a serious threat to colonists, especially those equipped with the Doomsday rocket launcher or triple rocket launcher. Rocket-wielding Pirates often spawn in mid-game raids, and having a coping strategy is crucial to safeguarding your colonists.

An important thing to note is that explosives are not blocked by cover, but are stopped by walls. This means your colonists covering behind sandbags will be hurt by the explosion, but not those hiding behind a wall.

Thrown explosives

Raiders with thrown explosives are horribly short-ranged, giving your colonists a chance to shoot them down before they can even throw a single grenade.

As frag grenades have a fuse and small radius, evacuating colonists can safely avoid the damage.

Molotov cocktails explode instantly, and can set your colonists on fire; while they do not cause as much direct damage as frags, they can cause your colonists to exit cover and run around erratically, exposing them to gunfire. Downed colonists will certainly die from fire unless extinguished or rescued.
The fires started can also be damaging to your base and can burn down vital structures such as power conduits and generators.

Incendiary launchers are functionally the same, however they have a longer range, making them harder to deal with.

EMP grenades are less dangerous overall, as they do no physical damage; still, they pose some threat to melee brawlers by downing their shields, as well as stun turrets.

Rocket launchers

Raiders with rocket launchers are arguably more dangerous, due to their long range and high damage explosive attacks that can easily down, maim or kill several colonists at once. The Doomsday rocket launcher also has the ability to set large areas on fire, devastating any flammables in your colony.

However, they are not good shooters; they don't have much qualms about injuring their comrades at all, even if there's only 1 lone colonist but many of their fellow raiders around them. This can be exploited simply by making a colonist equipped with a personal shield run towards them. They will often hit their allies, especially when using the Doomsday rocket launcher, while the shield will block the damage from the explosion.
Note that this is somewhat risky as your colonist's shield is likely to be broken from the resulting concentrated gunfire even if it did survive the blast; afterwards, your colonist may be injured, downed or even killed. Still better than having many colonists die from a rocket launcher though.

Alternatively, you can use one of your more expendable battle animals to charge the attackers; this has the same effect except your animal will most likely die from the rockets.

Defensive Construction

The below shows ways you can build a base to repel attacks.

Perimeter Wall

A good but material-expensive way for defending bases, this simply requires erecting a wall surrounding your base. The wall can be delay attackers, or gaps can be introduced to funnel raiders, giving your colonists the upper hand in dealing with raids.

Cover construction

Effective cover is an essential part in any defense, being able to negate a large part of any potential damage that can be dealt to your colonists.

Perimeter sandbags

An essential defense in a large base if you don't want to build killboxes (see below) or the like, this simply involves surrounding your base with sandbags. This provides great cover from gunfire, stopping 65% of the bullets that will otherwise hit your colonists. However this does not protect against explosive weapons.

Alternating walls with sandbags

Alternatively, alternating walls with sandbags can provide even better cover, is slightly cheaper (assuming use of Steel or cheaper materials) and might have some effect against explosives. However, depending on the material, the walls may be flammable and also have less health than the sandbags.

Pillboxes

Small, enclosed areas with sandbags placed facing the enemy. This is a good way to provide cover, if you don't want to enclose the whole base with sandbags or want to pair up with perimeter walls.

Turret Nested Entryway

Turreted outside areas are generally only viable for the first several raids (in Tough Cassandra Classic), after which the areas will quickly get overwhelmed each raid due to not being able to focus fire on the spread-out raiders. While protecting the outside starting area, you want to rapidly pause the game during raids and give orders to repair damaged turrets. Turrets should each get their own sandbags to reduce incoming fire both to the turret and the colonist behind the turret repairing/shooting.

Putting a turreted defense in an underground base with a narrow entrance and wide turreted area is best because it forces the raiders to take a single-file approach to where all the turrets will be able to fire on them. There should be more than one line of turrets so that the innermost line or lines can be used to position colonists where they are not immediately under threat from grenades (grenadiers will target the closest turrets first) or if colonists are positioned closer so they can repair, to retreat colonists further back when turrets are about to be or have been destroyed. Every line of turrets should have a line of sandbags directly in front and every supporting wall/rock should also have sandbags to lessen the likelihood of collapse due to collateral damage. Turrets should not be placed directly (within three tiles) next to wall/rock or other turrets for the same reason, as they explode when they run out of health. Outside or in front of the defense area, you can put blasting charge minefields in areas they are likely to group up in.

Remember that raiders will run from exploding turrets!

Minelaying

Early on, you want to focus on armed colonist defense with turrets, but as the raiders grow in number, it becomes more efficient to use a bit of metal to kill several at once than to invest a lot of metal in a turret that costs nothing to fire, but will explode rapidly due to large raider groups.

IED traps are extremely effective when used correctly, however in open areas they are mostly useless as the raiders are highly unlikely to step in any of the traps. Thus, it is better if you combine traps with funneling to force the raiders together.

Note that IED traps have a delay before exploding, allowing some raiders to escape.

Killboxes

Killboxes are in general heavily trapped, armed areas where enemies are funneled to so they can be destroyed easily.

They almost consist of a funnel which directs raiders into it, like a wall with a single opening.
Raiders will then trickle in, allowing colonists or turrets to concentrate fire on them, or traps to destroy them while they try to move in to attack.

This is an extremely effective way to defeat most raids, as the enemies will often be overwhelmed by the sheer firepower raining on them. It also allows effective use of traps, as funneling enemies greatly increases the chance one's going to trigger them.

Note that sappers will attempt to mine into the base away from the killboxes, so make sure you have an effective coping strategy.

The "Fire Wall"

An effective cover design is to alternate 2 walls and 1 sand bag, by doing this you have 3 colonists shooting out of the same hole, 2 behind full cover and one behind low cover. This method can be expanded as long as there is room on the map.

▢ - Sandbags | ▩ - Wall | ◉ - Colonist behind full Cover | ◎ - Colonist behind half Cover

▲ Outside
▩ ▢ ▩ ▩ ▢ ▩
◉ ◎ ◉ ◉ ◎ ◉
▼ Inside

Pros

• Gives excellent cover
• Allows defenders to attack a wide range of targets while remaining behind cover
• Prevents colonists from ganging up on enemies

Cons

• The design narrows the attack area, so the attackers must come straight at the defenders

The "Melee Defense "

This defense uses only melee weapons to defend against endless number of enemies with just 3 colonists. The walls fill funnel in the enemies in so that they would start attacking the door, they will be slowed down by the Rock chunks, when they are attacking the door the colonists on either side of the door will be able to melee attack the enemies through the corner of the door and the wall without them fighting back,and with the third colonist in front of the door repairing it you can keep this up until all of your enemies are dead or retreating, death claws or great swords are recommended but any melee weapon will do, the walls and door should be made out of granite to ensure maximum durability.

▩ - Wall | ◉ - Colonist | ◎ - Rock chunk | ▢ - Door |

      ▲ Outside
  ▩▩▩▩▩◎▩▩▩▩▩
        ▩◎▩
        ▩◎▩
        ▩◎▩
        ▩◎▩
        ▩◎▩
        ▩◎▩
        ▩◎▩
        ▩◎▩
        ▩◎▩
        ▩◎▩
        ◉▢◉
         ◉
      ▼ Inside

Pros

• Colonists will not get hurt
• Only requires 3 colonist

Cons

• It is unsure if the one way melee attack is a bug exploit or if it is intended by the developers

"Attention Suppressor" Entryway

Once you have lots of bulk materials, but don't have enough industry to build proper defenses, you can build an attention suppressor out front of your basic defensive line. This is usually out of wood, although the flammability of wood is a problem.

Start like you're making a 29×29 room(27×27 interior), but instead of doors, just leave one-tile openings at opposite ends. That way it doesn't get a roof. If needed, use a no roof area. Down the middle of the attention suppressor leave an open path, 3 tiles wide, which will actually be travelled by your colonists. Pack the sides with alternating walls, leaving numerous blind alleys branching off the open path. The attention suppressor should look like two giant combs facing each other across the path, or perhaps like a cutaway of an especially-blocky sound suppressor.

Diagram:

#############   #############
#                           #
#############   #############
#                           #
#############   #############
#                           #
#############   #############
#                           #
#############   #############
#                           #
...and so on

A raider entering through an attention suppressor is presented with numerous blind alleys, each one of which could hold something important. Raiders will typically only resist the lure of a dozen or so blind alleys, after which they'll turn off into a blind alley to look for something to attack. In many cases they'll attack the walls, but the general effect is that a raiding force will spend a long time milling around in the attention suppressor, deeply distracted, and slowly trickle out of it toward your base alone, or (for a large raid) in twos and threes. This slow trickle of raiders is easily handled by a few colonists with basic weapons, or later a few turrets and a repairer.

Colonists and visitors with specific business on one side or the other of the attention suppressor will go quickly down the middle without being distracted. However, colonists pursuing joy activities like going for a walk will usually be diverted to do so in the blind alleys of the attention suppressor. As a result, it's not safe to fill with deathtraps.

Bunkers

If you prefer prolonged firefights instead of taking your enemies out with cheap tricks, then this is for you. This is an early game strategy because all you need for it is walls. First, build a room in an area where you expect enemies to approach from. This room doesn't have to be box-like -- all you need is a place for your colonists to stand inside while they shoot out. Simply build a structure in any shape and then deconstruct a few walls to make some holes -- these will be firing holes for your shooters, where they can use the walls as cover.

Additionally, build a roof for your bunker so that every cell underneath it will count as 'Dark', with no light from the sun, and it will be protected from bad weather like rain and lightning strikes. So, when a raider attack comes and your shooters head to the bunker, they now enjoy not only the full cover bonus from having thick walls between them and the enemy, but also the fact that they are in darkness, meaning that enemies take yet another accuracy penalty when firing at them. Also, if a firefight is going on in bad weather, the roof will prevent your shooters from suffering the accuracy penalty from that, too. To truly finish the bunker, add non-flammable flooring (Stone blocks) so your colonists don't have to worry so much about fires while inside.

"Pros"

• Extremely cheap -- all it takes is whatever materials you use for the walls
• Simple, easy and fun to build -- just make a room and knock out holes for your shooters
• Makes it very hard for your enemies to hit your colonists since they are behind full cover and in darkness
• You can easily extend this into a full bunker system just by adding more walls and knocking out more holes

"Cons"

• Should enemies overrun your bunker(s), they can turn the defenses on you to devastating effect
• May require Stonecutting research to get walls that are good enough to withstand sustained fire -- wood and steel just don't cut it

Tunnel of Doom

One early game tactic is to slow down your enemies by (possibly using mountains to help) creating a narrow strip between your colony and potential areas where raiders could attack from, then placing a wall of sandbags close to the exit of the strip (the end closer to your colony obviously) where you can put turrets and/or colonists to attack the raiders. (You can also place debris in the strip so that they are slowed even more).

"Pros"

• Fairly cheap
• Easy to build

"Cons"

• Sandbags need steel (debris can be used instead of sandbags)

Trap Chokepoints =

Deadfall traps are available to you from the start of the game even if you start off as a tribe. Though they can be costly to make in large numbers, if you have lots of wood or steel on your map you can start producing them early.

The main point of this defense is that you build a wall around your colony, essentially creating a compound. This can be more or less costly depending on how many hills are around that you can use as natural barriers. You leave an empty tile or two on the wall as exits as needed and then you build a second wall segment 7-11 tiles long just in front of the empty tiles. These segments will have a door at the same spot as the hole behind them. Then, you fill up the space in-between with traps like so:

▣ - Door ◉ - Deadfall trap ▩ - Walls

▲ Outside
  ▩ ▩ ▩ ▩ ▣ ▩ ▩ ▩ ▩ 
◉ ◉ ◉ ◉ ◉   ◉ ◉ ◉ ◉ ◉ 
▩ ▩ ▩ ▩ ▩   ▩ ▩ ▩ ▩ ▩
▼ Inside

Due to how the AI works, your colonists will prefer to move through the door, thereby always avoiding your own traps, whereas any enemies will prefer to go around the wall segment straight towards the open entrance, but that leads them into your line of traps. 5-6 traps, - even if made from wood - are usually enough to kill or severely wound an enemy. If you can afford to make them out of steel or better, you can expect an assaulting enemy force to take heavy losses by the time they make it through your traps.

Pros

• Can often single handedly rout early raiders without your colonists ever being in danger.
• Traps can be rearmed any number of times, making this method economical in the long run.

Cons

• High resource cost can make it unfeasable on resource poor maps.
• If the entrances are very far from where the enemies approach from, they might choose to attack your wall instead.

Misc Strategies

Miscellaneous strategies to effective make the most out of your defenses.

Ghost Town

Give all your villagers melee weapons, and stick them in the building closest to the raider path. When any enemy draws close, pop out on them, swarming the 1-2 biggest or closest threats first.

Pros:

• Nullifies range advantages, (especially against grenades) and most of the risk from sitting behind sandbags.
• Most enemies will bring either low tech melee weapons like clubs, or use guns. Once you get a smithy you can outclass both of these with longswords.
• No concerns about friendly fire
• Enemies tend to split up once they reach your settlement allowing you to divide and conquer.
• No special prep required, just pick any building in the enemies path.

Cons:

• Some late game enemies can nullify this simply by overpowering your melee fighters.
• Some enemies will set your building on fire which might block the entrance, or split your focus. This is exceedingly rare though.
• Doesnt work well with low population