IED trap

IED trap

An artillery shell connected to a homemade trigger. When someone disturbs the trigger, the shell explodes. The improvised trigger has a random delay that might allow a nimble enemy to escape.

Base Stats

Type

Security

Beauty

-4

HP

40

Building

Size

1

Placeable

Yes

The IED trap explodes in a 5-tile radius shortly after an enemy had walked over it, dealing 50 explosive blunt damage to any body part. This gives it a fair chance to incapacitate and a small chance to kill a pawn. When tripped, it will start emitting a hissing sound hinting enemies to run away and because of the delay, single placings may prove useless but chained each other within blast radius can guarantee effectiveness at an expensive cost. It is worth noting that the IED incendiary trap triggers instantly, but deals less damage.

Strategy

It is inadvisable to place in the open, as animals could trigger the trap instead of raiders. Colonists and friendlies are aware of placed traps and will walk around them, but only if another short route is available. Pawns will not be able to avoid traps placed in a long continuous line, or in choke points like a narrow hallway. A trap is less likely to be triggered by a colonist or friendly (0.4% chance), but it's still best to not take that chance to begin with.

Placement requires some forethought, such as guessing positions where the enemies will be stuck for a couple of seconds and thus unable to retreat in time; for example, if they had to walk over a tile or two of sandbags to reach the trap, it would explode long before they could run away due to the reduced movement speed they would suffer.

A very useful and effective tactic is to intentionally place these traps behind cover like rocks or sandbags, on the side that enemies would take cover on when engaging your colonists. Enemy AI will cause raiders to seek the cover of rocks, trees or walls, and if IED traps are waiting for them, they will get a very nasty surprise when the landmine explodes. Be warned that the damage from the trap will usually not be enough to destroy the cover (unless you pre-damaged it yourself), so enemies may still be able to use it after the trap has done its job.

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Architect

Security

Barricade • Sandbags • Spike trap

(research)

Autocannon turret • Foam turret • Mini-turret • Rocketswarm launcher • Uranium slug turret • Mortar

IEDs

IED trap • IED incendiary trap • IED EMP trap • IED firefoam trap • IED smoke trap • IED antigrain warhead trap • IED tox trap • IED deadlife trap

Related

Antigrain warhead • EMP shell • Firefoam shell • High-explosive shell • Incendiary shell • Smoke shell • Tox shell • Deadlife shell