User:PigeonGuru/Sandbox

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 successful colony.

This page details different tactics for defense and visualizations of them, from all stages of the game.

With Alpha 17, raiders have become smarter. You will need better tactics to defend against raider threats.

Raider behavior

Raiders (mechanoid, humanlike or insectoid) will attack randomly chosen constructed objects, colonists and colony animals. They will not attack natural rock walls (not the case for sappers), wild animals (unless hostile) or unpowered turrets. They will also attack prisoners if they are captured from their enemy factions.

Raiders will usually set fire to crops in growing zones, power generation or conduits, walls, nutrient paste dispensers, shelves, orbital trade beacons and deep drills. They will melee attack lamps, beds, stools, short tables, long tables, and doors. They also use molotovs and frag grenades on turrets, sandbags, or other targets, and some use EMP grenades to stun your turrets.

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

Humanlike 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.

During this time, you can choose to attack them with mortars or hit-and-run tactics.

Raider Equipment

Raiders spawn with randomized equipment depending on their weapon and clothing budget and their raider type.

Apparel

They can range from only wearing a tattered pair of pants to armor vests to full sets of power armor. Mercenary slashers are special in that they are the only raider type to spawn with shield belts and will always do so. Tribals always come in tribalwear, with tuques and parkas only if necessary.

In cold environments, they will come in wearing parkas or tuques, protecting them from temperatures up to -110°C (though it's usually around -40 - -50°C). They don't usually come in wearing dusters or cowboy hats in hot areas, making them vulnerable to the heat.

Their apparel is often damaged to some degree, making them less protective against attacks. They tend to use leather or cloth clothes, which don't provide very good protection, only occasionally using the more protective devilstrand or hyperweave.

While mid-late game pirates can come with 40% or above sharp protection, with quality apparel you can push yours to have more than 60% easily. This gives you the upper hand against the not-so-well protected pirates by allowing you to take more hits in battle.

Weapons

They spawn with whatever weapons their faction is willing to provide them. They can charge at your colonists with mid-class spears and longswords, or basic clubs or shivs.
They often come equipped with a variety of ranged weapons too- a broken pistol, a decent slugthrower, a long-ranged sniper rifle, an advanced charge rifle, high damage miniguns or even explosive weapons are all part of their arsenal. Tribals however always come equipped with primitive weapons like bows or pila.

Weapons are assigned at random, meaning that more often than not raiders don't get to use a weapon appropriate for their skills; brawlers can often be seen charging into battle with a gun and a -20 mood penalty, supported by their novice snipers that can barely able to hit at any range, and skilled shooters wielding a melee weapon that they're more inclined to try to fire with than bash with.
However, some classes of raider always come with the same (category of) weapon. For example, mercenary snipers always use sniper rifles, grenadiers wield some form of thrown explosive and scythers always use the charge lance.

If you have your colonists equip suitable weapons according to their skills, you already have a great advantage over the raiders. You can have gunners actually capable of properly connecting shots, supported by melee brawlers that rarely miss and can evade enemy attacks.

Drugs

Pirates or Outlanders may utilize some form of combat-enhancing drug, namely go-juice, yayo and luciferium. They will usually start off addicted to them, and will carry some in their inventory which is dropped upon death. They may also use multiple drugs, disregarding the risk of overdose.

Some drugs can eliminate most of the pain received, making the raider last much longer in battle before getting downed or dying. They may also grant increased movement speed, meaning that raiders can get into position earlier, and brawlers can harass your defenders more easily.

• Go-juice is an excellent combat drug that makes the raider much more efficient in battle. It eliminates 90% of pain, gives a 30% movement speed buff, and gives an additional 10% consciousness buff for more accuracy. The raider is almost guaranteed to fight until death, or the rarer case of incapacitation through a shattered spine, severe brain damage or removal of both legs. It's almost always more worth it to use body part-destroying weapons such as the Sniper rifle to kill them, as Go-juice does not reduce the actual damage they take.
• Yayo isn't as good a combat drug as go-juice, but still grants a 15% buff to speed and eliminates half of pain received.
• Luciferium grants a wide range of buffs to the user, from increased organ function, to slight movement speed and consciousness buffs, to reduced pain. It's more troublesome to capture addicted raiders since you'll need to regularly feed them Luciferium to sustain their lives, which is very expensive and hard to come by -- it's usually more worthwhile to just euthanize them on the spot.

Battle tactics

You can face off your opponents in a variety of methods. These methods are more aggressive, and focus more on defeating enemies than holding off against them.

Hit and run

Against slow or static targets you can employ a hit-and-run strategy to weaken them. You will need several fast-moving long-ranged colonists, preferably with sniper rifles. Draft them and have them move within range to fire. Once the enemy tries to return fire, quickly have them leave the enemy's firing range. Repeat until conditions are no longer safe to conduct this attack, such as enemies entering full aggression and charging.

Effective against siege camps and preparing raiders for they tend to stay put at their location until they are aggravated into attacking.

Kiting

This tactic works effectively in some situations, but if you don't use it correctly it's basically a suicide mission.

It involves the use of fast colonists (with 120-140% or more Moving) running near the enemy to gain their attention. Then, the kiters will proceed to outrun them, while always staying within their attention range. After running far enough, fire a few shots at them before continuing to run. This way, kiters can distract a group of enemies by leading them around the map, while chipping away at their health. Other colonists can fire on the enemy from a distance.

The kiting colonist should be armored to guard against the risks involved, but not be slowed down too much. The kiter should always stay near the enemy so as to grab their attention. If the kiter strays too far away, the enemy will decide to engage other targets instead.

Kiting is an extremely high-risk tactic. As long as your colonist safely outruns hostiles, you're fine. However, once the enemy catches up, your colonist will be brutally beaten up, shot and cut apart while being unable to escape, unless you are very lucky.

Splitting

When two of your colonists are being chased, you can conduct a split so that the enemy can only chase down 1 colonist while the other escapes. If one of your colonists has ranged weapons, then you could split and then conduct a kite.

Flanking

To flank enemies, have defenders approach the attackers from the sides or the back instead of concentrating fire on the front.

Enemy ranged units often stay in the same spot when engaging your colonists, and they tend to have effective cover facing one direction only, making them vulnerable to flanking. Flanking enemy ranged units can distract them and cause them to lose their cover advantage with attacks coming from multiple sides. However, this also makes you lose the advantage of having high-quality cover such as sandbags on your side.

This works best against entrenched ranged enemies attacking you from one side. They should be occupied with attacking frontal targets so you can creep up to them to unload lead on them from another angle.

Rounding up any survivors fleeing after the attack also becomes easier if you have someone blocking off escapes from behind.

Surrounding

If you have enough soldiers and suitable cover you can surround them completely, so they will not be able to escape. Firing from all sides also makes cover ineffective at protecting the raiders, while still allowing you to enjoy the benefit of partial cover if you can find it.

Spaced forces

This tactic involves putting space between each defending member of the colony. Each colonist should ideally stand 1 tile away from another colonist. This reduces the chance of enemy bullets hitting somebody else after missing the original target, and also makes explosive weapons hit fewer colonists.

If you have the space, you can arrange colonists to stand 3 tiles away from each other. That way, crowd control weapons such as miniguns or heavy charge blasters will not be able to hit at all, and explosive weapons have greatly reduced anti-infantry effectiveness.

Melee tactics

Melee soldiers are a useful asset in your colonies, if used correctly. They can bring disruption against enemy ranged troops, or fight off invading brawlers charging into your lines.

It's best to equip your melee colonists with Shield belts and good armor to protect against heavy fire from both sides and distract the ranged attackers. Melee attackers without the protection of shields are highly vulnerable to gunfire, even if heavily armored. Before battle, hide your melee attackers so that they remain hidden until all enemy melee attackers are engaged with either the walls or your ranged troops, or put them in line with/in front of your gunners for quick deployment and damage absorption.

Friendly fire is a serious issue when deploying brawlers, so if you can you should direct fire away from your brawlers.

Melee sortie

This tactic involves using a small element of melee colonists to engage enemy ranged attackers, to take the heat off your own gunners.

Sending groups of melee attackers against enemy shooters can cause great disruption against them, because being engaged in melee interrupts ranged attacks, prevents further attacks from occurring and lowers movement speed drastically. It can be used to take down annoying long-ranged snipers or small gunner groups, as when forced into melee they can only fight back with their fists, which are woefully inadequate especially if your brawler is equipped with blunt damage-absorbing armor. Charging at entrenched ranged attackers with melee colonists will divert their attention from your own entrenched forces to your charging brawlers.

Melee rush

Melee rushing is the tactic of sending your melee attackers to engage hostiles all at once, rather than focusing on shooting them down or sending small parties to take down troublesome enemies. Ranged attackers shooting behind cover from a distance could be a pain to deal with for your own ranged forces, while melee attackers may get close enough to deal heavy damage to the ranged defenders.

Melee rushes can work alone, especially with quality equipment; well-equipped melee rushes can hold off an attack and cause raiders to flee despite being slightly outnumbered. They can also attract a great deal of friendly fire from the pirates, as they try to shoot down your brawlers, hitting their allies in the process.

If you aren't afraid of friendly fire, it can be combined with a firing squad from a distance for devastating effects. The brawlers cause chaos within the raiding party while the firing squad lays fire to destroy them while the raiders are trying to cope with your brawlers.

Against all-melee charges, your own melee rush is a good coping strategy, though be prepared to see someone downed or killed in the chaos.

Peeling

If a vulnerable gunner is under attack by melee attackers, you can 'peel' them away using your brawlers. Have them engage the melee attackers, then get the gunner to run away from the enemy. The melee attackers will then focus on your brawlers, allowing your gunner to put some distance between them and the attackers.

Trained animals also automatically peel for their assigned masters, if 'Release animals' is Off. The animals will attack any hostiles coming close rather than straying off to attack distant targets.
Setting 'Release animals' to On right when a colonist in distress near the trainer allows the animals to swarm the attacker, effectively peeling them away from that colonist.

Peeling is often required against enemy melee rushes or manhunter packs, as the gunners are liable to getting swarmed before they can take down enough enemies to lessen the threat visibly.

Note that peeling is a relatively high-risk activity, as you are trying to put a pawn at risk in return for allowing a pawn at greater risk to escape. Peeling pawns should be expendable or decently armored.

Point-blank firing

Most guns deal more damage than unarmed in point-blank. This is helpful for gunners armed with ranged weapons, as it means they can fight off melee enemies. It also allows firing through shield belts to directly deal damage to the enemy inside.

Gunners need to be manually directed to fire at the enemy since they will automatically engage in melee when an enemy picks a fight with them.

Tanking

This tactic simply requires you put your shielded or heavily-armored colonists before your static gunners to partially soak up gunfire.

As with any tactic that involves putting a colonist as a meat shield, this poses a great risk to colonists' lives. If the colonists' shields are downed and they are not well-armored, you will have to get them to retreat behind cover until their shields come back online, otherwise your colonist will be exposed to ruthless gunfire.

Firing at cover

While cover works best against attacks coming straight, it's usually better to fire straight at the target instead of from an angle. If you fire straight at it, only 1 unit of cover will be effective, but if you shoot at a diagonal angle, 2 units of cover will be effective, both being capable of blocking shots, in total contributing to a higher cover effectiveness.

However, if you can get to the point where you're almost firing horizontally at the raiders, then cover becomes nearly ineffective at protecting the raider, allowing many more shots to connect. This often requires you get out of your own cover, so it's not recommended unless you can find suitable cover nearby.
For skilled medium-long range shooters it's best to shoot from a great angle to hit them from the sides.
However for not-so-good or short ranged shooters it's better to directly fire at them instead as the extra distance will make it harder to land hits, or cause the raider to exit firing range.

The below shows the difference firing angle makes on the hit chance of a pawn hiding behind cover. All values from Alpha 16.

• 

  Firing straight at a raider in cover; 1 stone chunk blocks 40%.

• 

  Firing at an angle; 2 stone chunks block 48% total.

• 

  Firing at a greater angle; 2 stone chunks block 37% total.

• 

  Firing almost horizontally; 1 granite chunk blocks 8% only.

Friendly fire management

Friendly fire is a serious issue when facing close-range attackers, especially manhunter packs. If they manage to run past your barrage of gunfire to engage your ranged soldiers, they will receive more injuries from friendly fire in the ensuing chaos than the attackers themselves. You need to be careful when directing your troops so you don't hit your own forces by accident.

1. Only let the soldiers closest to melee attackers fire at them. Manually re-target the others to fire at another direction, repositioning them if needed.
2. Disable 'Fire at will' when the enemies are closing in so they won't switch targets, potentially causing friendly fire.
3. Despite the ability to have multiple lines of gunners behind each unit of cover, it isn't recommended to do so. Stray bullets, including bullets fired horizontally at melee attackers, will more likely hit someone this way.
4. When the enemy breaks the ranks, reposition your ranged soldiers so they don't hit each other.

Rescue

When a colonist is downed or severely injured behind your cover, you should drag them immediately to the hospital or somewhere outside an active fight, where doctors can patch them up. Don't leave downed colonists in the fight, otherwise they risk dying from stray bullets or blood loss.

Colonists lying outside your cover are more risky to rescue. Choose the right time to pull them out, using your best-protected colonists, and don't let anyone near at other times. If needed, drop them off behind your lines, then switch to another colonist or animal to get them to safety.

You should have a few rescue members stand near a fight. They can pull out any colonists when they are downed. If possible, give them better protection, and if they need to venture out into the crossfire, try to have colonists shoot at another direction to avoid friendly fire. Non-combatant doctors should be drafted to stand near the medicine storage to allow them to quickly grab medicine for treatment.

Before a downed colonist is rescued, stand at least 1 tile away from them. This way no stray bullets (save the minigun or explosives) will hit that colonist. For better safety, stand 3 tiles away so nothing else except rocket launchers can connect.

If a colonist cannot reach the hospital in time, have them immediately lie down at a temporary sleeping spot safely outside the battlefield. Have the doctor closest to the medicine storage go and treat the colonist ASAP. You will have a higher infection chance this way, but it's faster than having the doctor carry the colonist into the hospital.

Body blocking

You can deny raiders access to locations by physically blocking them with your colonists or animals. This can be used to seal off raiders' escapes if you have a chokepoint, delaying their entry to some locations of your base, or stopping prison breaks, especially when doors are broken down.

You will need to use heavily armored soldiers to body block large amounts of active combatants at once as they will take a lot of hits while blocking, and even so the colonist will eventually collapse due to sustained damage.

With a 1-tile wide chokepoint combined with measures to force enemies into melee range, you can have 1 melee soldier hold off a lot of enemies. This can be bolstered with up to 2 short-ranged gunners laying fire over the melee soldier's shoulder.

Animals

The animals on the map, tamed or not, can be used to your advantage.

Raiders never come using tamed animals so the advantage of animals on your side is solely yours.

Tamed animal release

With your handlers, you can amass a huge army of animals to charge the enemy. Simply find a good combat-capable animal, tame it, and train it to learn Release.

There are many animals that are good for this purpose. Wild boars are an excellent choice as they can graze on grass for food, reproduce quickly, move fast and pack quite a punch for its size. If you like bigger animals, you can also tame elephants or rhinos.

If you want an army of suicide bombers, then boomrats are a suitable choice of animal. Boomalopes have a much bigger explosion radius and deal higher melee damage but are much slower and easier to hit, hence being less effective.

Meat shield

The animals surrounding a handler can be used as a convenient meat shield as they take bullets, arrows and other ranged attacks (but not explosives) for their master. Provided they don't stray too far, they won't receive friendly fire as the shooters simply fire over them. All you need is to train Obedience, instead of Release.

You can also position your colonists behind animals if you're desperate for cover. This works with any animal, even non-tamed, but is less effective as the animal will wander around on its own, while trained animals will surround their master. You also risk having the animals go manhunter and turn on your colonists, especially if the animal is prone to aggression (such as bears, if you're foolhardy enough to use them as cover).

Strategic zoning

Raiders take their sweet time to exterminate any trace of your tamed animals on the map. This can be exploited to your advantage, as long as you're willing to have a few animals valiantly sacrifice themselves.

• Distraction: If you let your animals run all over the place, raiders may be tied up trying to wipe out the animals. This can give your colonists time to prepare, such as entering defensive positions or running to your mortars to fire a few rounds, as well as scatter the raiders making them much easier to deal with. Raiders wielding rocket launchers also tend to waste them on your animals, leaving your colonists and structures mostly unharmed. However if they see better targets they will come at them instead.
• Aggressive zoning: Zone all your animals in a place where you are expecting an encounter with enemies. A short time later, the animals will move towards the zone and stay there. Enemies will notice the animals and will start attacking, making them fight back and injure or even down the attackers. This method works for any animal, even those that cannot be trained. Remember to undo the zoning otherwise the animals may starve.
  • Animal chokepoint: You can have a chokepoint in your base, combined with a small animal area covering the chokepoint.

Aggravating animals

If you have any easily enraged animals such as timber wolves, cougars, grizzlies, rhinos or others, as well as a very fast colonist (>130% moving; Go-juice, or 2 bionic legs), you can shoot the animals then have the fast colonist lead them right into the raiders. Some of them will stop and engage the animal, causing the animal to switch targets.

It is best that you equip the fast colonist with a shield belt due to the high risk of walking near the enemy- you can even consider it as a suicide mission, given the task at hand.

For this, larger animals are best, as the smaller ones often get killed before they can enter melee range(unless you can enrage multiple at a time, or the enemy is pure melee). The chaos ensued means that the pirates will receive a significant portion of damage from friendly fire in addition to the damage from the animal itself.
A thrumbo can be considered a godsend in a raid; just send 1 straight into the raider hordes, and let 'em rip.
If you have a manhunter pack coincide with a raid, then even better.

Remember, if you can down the animal easily with colonists, so can the raiders. Try to send just 1 small animal and it will die pretty soon, doing little other than being an annoyance.

Artifacts

These one-use items can be useful in turning the tide of a raid, provided you can use them correctly.

Psychic insanity lance

This artifact instantly drives a humanlike or animal berserk, causing them to attack any nearby pawns.

You can use this to cause great disruption within the enemy's ranks as enemies will switch targets to engage the berserk pawn, distracting them. It's best used on a shielded melee target who will then channel their rage onto their nearby ranged allies, forcing them to engage in unarmed combat.

It can also be used to enrage animals from a distance, unleashing them upon the enemy attackers. Choose a tough animal with high damage output that can tear enemies apart, or a small and fast animal which can close the distance through gunfire to distract the enemy.

While berserk pawns may not deal much damage on their own, the resulting fire directed in panic at the berserker can greatly weaken an incoming attack -- especially if the berserker is wearing a Shield belt to block fire.

Psychic shock lance

This artifact instantly downs a humanlike or animal, with a chance of causing brain damage.

Not as useful as a psychic insanity lance against raids, but can still be used to great effect, by downing an attacker that might cause huge damage such as a rocketeer.

It's also somewhat useful if you want to capture a specific raider with good stats, though you need to get him before the effect wears off, and you risk brain damage which can ruin a previously good potential colonist.

Psychic animal pulser

This artifact instantly drives all animals, including your tamed ones, into a manhunter state.

In an animal-rich area such as a temperate forest or arid shrubland, nearly any humanlike/ mechanoid raid can quickly get devastated.

Before you even consider using this, you should be very careful; the animals will also turn on your colonists. You will need to keep the animals out, and your colonists in. Make sure you get all your tamed animals out first, restrict your colonists to indoors areas only, and have a stock of food handy. Once the animals fall asleep they will exit their rage.

Outside help

If the storyteller is feeling somewhat merciful, outside help may come to save the day.

Don't count on this however, as these rarely happen on their own, and most of the time you still need to fend off the raiders yourself.

Friendly reinforcements

Occasionally while hostiles are on the map, a friendly military caravan will come to bolster your defenses. The threats may also coincide with friendly trade caravans visitors or passersby, who will help to engage a common enemy. They are not very powerful, but can still provide additional firepower, and provide distraction for your colonists.

You may also call for additional help at a cost of -25 goodwill. This can be repaired by diplomatic gifts, or rescuing and treating downed friendlies.

Environmental hazards

Very rarely, when unable to put a proper fight, you can count on Mother Nature to play for your side. Invaders will come to you without any kind of proper protection against the weather. You will be able to fend off the attack without confrontation.

If you choose to play on an extremely hot or cold map such as in a sea ice biome near the poles, then this becomes a common fate that will happen to nearly all raids.

• 

  Siege flees from Toxic fallout and hypothermia.

• 

  Free prisoners in bulk.

Weapons

Allocating and using weapons effectively gives you a sizable advantage against raiders, who barely have any knowledge on how to properly use them.

Here is a list of ways to use each weapon, and how to counter enemies that are using them.

Melee

Weapons that can only deal damage in hand-to-hand combat. They usually deal more damage than guns, if you can reach the enemy to attack, and have the added benefit of forcing enemies into melee combat -- putting gun-armed raiders at a grave disadvantage as they can only fight with their fists -- and applying a hefty movement speed malus on any pawn that's even attacked in melee.

Usage

• Pair with shield belts to protect colonists while they close in on the enemy.
• Fight back against enemy brawlers trying to break your ranks.

Counters

• Shoot them down before they enter range (much harder with active shield belts, but can be managed if you have EMP weaponry).
• Instead of engaging them with melee, gunners should fire point-blank to deal more damage.
• Outrun and kite them with fast movers.

Blunt

Blunt weapons include the club or mace. The mace is nearly always the smarter choice, despite its higher cost, and lower DPS compared to sharp weapons with similar costs.

Usage

• Attack enemies heavily protected against sharp damage.
• Use them as a non-lethal weapon to down enemies that you want to (re)capture.

Counter

• Burst them down before they can deal much damage.

Sharp

There is a much larger variety of sharp weapons, from the cheapest and weakest shiv, to the strongest but most expensive longsword. They should be the weapon to use if you're looking for damage, especially for the spear or longsword.

Usage

• Use as a general purpose melee weapon for dealing damage.

Counter

• Most armor and clothing protects well against sharp damage.

Bionic

These are not equipped weapons, instead they are attachments as a replacement to a body part.

There are two combat bionic body parts, the power claw and scyther blade. Both deal higher damage than unarmed, and are hand replacements.

Usage

• Don't equip additional melee weapons otherwise the colonist will use it instead, potentially reducing DPS.

Allocation

1. Spears and longswords should be given to the highest skill melee colonists, who will make the most out of their high DPS while being able to dodge enemy melee blows.
2. Maces should be given to designated brawlers to deal with heavily armored enemies, and wardens to down prisoners with less risk of fatally injuring them.
3. The gladius is somewhat middling with its DPS. It should be given to potential brawlers for them to practice melee, before upgrading them to better weapons.
4. Knives are a decent choice for non-combatants as a self-defense weapon. They may also be used as a practice weapon for leveling up melee.
5. Shivs or clubs should be used only if you lack better weapons, or materials and technology to make them, such as early-game.
6. Power claws can be used to replace the hands of a ranged soldier who will be expected to engage the enemy in front-line combat. For a slight penalty to shooting accuracy, the soldier will be able to fend off enemy brawlers easily, and help peel for others as well.
7. Scyther blades should be reserved for colonists with little purpose beyond melee combat, due to its heavy manipulation penalty.

Neolithic ranged

These weapons are crafted cheaply using wood, but have low overall DPS and only perform well in short range. They include the short bow, long bow and the pila. Often used by tribal archers during battles.

It's well advised to switch these out with guns which easily outperform them.

Usage

• Use them as a supplementary ranged weapon before you obtain better weapons such as guns.

Counter

• Out-range them using long-range guns.
• Charge at them with shielded melee.
• Most armor and clothing protects well against sharp damage.

Bows

Moderate-long distance low-tech ranged weapons. While these appear to have an appealing maximum range (29 to 32 tiles), in actual combat they are only practical at around half their maximum range. They don't deal much damage per shot, either, not enough to be lethal or to incapacitate.

Give great bows to your most skilled colonists that don't have a gun on their hands yet. Short bows are better suited for other colonists to at least arm them against threats.

Pila

A short-medium ranged weapon that has a long wind-up and cooldown time but deals high damage on hit. Its shots deal enough damage to incapacitate or even kill insufficiently protected colonists should they be struck in vital areas.

These are best suited for moderate-high skilled ranged soldiers.

Guns

A staple for either side of battle, guns are the go-to method of dealing ranged damage. Even if you're playing as a tribe, it's recommended to pick these up for use instead of using bows or pila.

Usage

• Basically anything that calls for ranged firepower.

Counters

• Most armor and clothing protects well against bullets.
• Dodge the bullets with fast movement.

Light firearms

Low-caliber weapons that fire rapidly but have lackluster damage output and average range.

These should only be used in actual combat during early-game when enemies are weak enough to take down with these.

Usage

• Equip on colonists with less shooting skill as the fast fire means missing is less punishing.
• Give to colonists to quickly improve their aiming skills, regardless of level.

Counters

• Shoot with long-ranged weapons.
• Take down other enemies first, who can deal more damage and hence more dangerous.

Pistol

The lowest tier of firearm. It's actually outclassed by the great bow which deals more damage and has better accuracy and range.

It is the best gun when it comes to training, since its fast firing rate means you'll pull off many shots in little time, rapidly giving XP for shooting.

Machine pistol

A light sub-machine gun. Its fires a 3-round burst with a low aim and cooldown, but its bullets deal very low damage, so low that they can't even shoot off a finger. Because of this, it makes a good weapon for wardens to subdue escaping prisoners, as it has a lower risk of permanent damage or accidental killing.

Short-range

Short-ranged weapons with ranges of less than 20 tiles. These require you get up close to the enemy to shoot them, leaving you more vulnerable to enemy fire, but in-return deal heavy DPS.

Usage

• Use as a supporting weapon to shoot down incoming melee enemies or return fire against short ranged enemies.
• Equip on non-combatants for self-defense.

Counters

• Deprive them of any nearby cover to expose them.
• Shoot with long-ranged weapons.
• Close in on them with shielded melee.

Pump shotgun

A weapon that fires a single high-damage blast of pellets at an unfortunate enemy. These can severely injure an enemy, sometimes killing them outright if you hit a vital organ.

It is fairly accurate within its effective range.

Chain shotgun

A very short-ranged weapon that fires a rapid 3-round burst of high-damage pellets. While having the potential to deal immense single-target damage, its very low accuracy means that the blasts will often hit other enemies next to the original target.

Overall, it's a situational pick that is most useful in special situations.

Usage

• Shred large targets with its high DPS, as it can land most of its shots against them.
• Use where enemies are bunched up and more likely to take hits from this weapon.

Counter

• Burst them down or force them into melee combat before they can pull off a single burst.
• Spread defenders apart to reduce chance of collateral damage.

Heavy SMG

Fires a 3-round burst of heavy slugs. These pack quite a punch for something its size, but aren't very accurate.

Medium-range

Well-rounded guns with a moderate maximum range of around 24-25 tiles. They deal excellent DPS at range if they can hit their mark.

Usage

• Give to your moderately skilled gunners.
• Deal heavy damage to entrenched low-DPS or short-ranged targets.

Counter

• Focus fire on them to take them out first.
• Out-range them when they are entrenched.

LMG

A light machine gun that fires a 6-round volley of light bullets at the enemy. While it has good damage potential, the bullets rarely hit the same target due to its average accuracy.

Usage

• Fire at a group of enemies to increase the chance of hitting them.

Charge rifle

An excellent weapon that fires a burst of charged energy packets at the enemy. Its good accuracy and high DPS means that defeating the enemy is no problem with this. It should be your standard weapon at mid-late game situations.

Though it works good even if used alone, it's best to add other longer-ranged weapons to the mix to make up for its mediocre range.

Long-range

Long-distance guns with a maximum range of 32 tiles or longer. Their main advantage lies in dealing damage from a distance to out-range short-ranged gunners, for they don't deal good damage up close.

Usage

• Give to your best shooters who will make the most out of the long range.
• Shoot down short-ranged gunners.
• Conduct hit-and-run or kiting attacks with ease.

Counter

• Take down other enemies who can provide fire support for them.
• Burst down with high-DPS weapons when unsupported.

Assault rifle

A versatile gun that works at long ranges while still dealing satisfactory damage at close-medium range. It works as a lower-tech version of the charge rifle when range is more important than DPS, and has potential as a kiting or hit-and-run weapon at higher qualities with a skilled and fast-moving shooter.

Bolt-action rifle

A long-range rifle that fires a single powerful bullet. It's the most accurate weapon in-game, surpassing the sniper rifle in accuracy, and also fires faster. It is more suited for novice snipers (level 10 or lower) as it's rather skill-friendly. Its faster fire rate also makes it better for kiting moving targets.

It isn't nearly as likely to deal permanent damage as the sniper rifle, making it better if your goal is to incapacitate rather than kill. It also fares better than the sniper rifle up close.

Sniper rifle

The longest-range weapon in-game, the sniper rifle fires an extremely high-damage bullet with a long aiming and cooldown time. It has incredible killing potential, being able to blow off limbs or heads with ease even with light armor on.

For maximum effectiveness the sniper rifle should be reserved for the best of the best shooters. At sniper distances even a difference of 1 level in Shooting can make a significant difference, and missing a shot is punishing due to its long firing cycle. They should also be fired from at least 15 tiles away from the enemy as it has poor performance at touch to short ranges. If you have any Go-juice available, have your snipers take it during a raid, as the firing accuracy bonus will dramatically improve their effectiveness with the sniper rifle.

It is an excellent weapon for hit-and-run attacks as its long range allows your snipers to fire from safety.

Special

Special weapons that don't really fit into the other categories. They are effective but situational.

Minigun

A more curious weapon, the minigun fires an immense 30-round barrage of bullets that can rain down on a group of enemies, but can't hit single targets at all, due to its forced miss radius. Shooting skill does not matter for this weapon at all.

Usage

• Equip on Trigger-happy colonists, regardless of shooting skill.
• Aim behind large group of enemies to deal immense damage to them.
• Shred enemies at point-blank distance.

Counter

• Spread out colonists to make it much harder for the minigun to hit.
• Shield belts can easily negate most of the minigun's damage as it can't be focused on a single target.

Explosives and incendiary weapons

Explosive weapons are a force to be reckoned with, whether by raiders or colonists. With correct use, they can deal heavy damage and disruption to the opposing side. Most armor protects poorly against explosive blunt or heat damage, making them a decent choice against heavily armored enemies.

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.

Mortars

See also: Defense structures#Mortars

Mortar attacks on sieges and raids are effective if the mortars have the time to aim and fire. Each shell has great destructive potential if they connect, but they take a long time to reload and aim, and have poor accuracy.

They also allow you to effectively utilize your colonists who are poor at combat, as mortar accuracy is unaffected by colonist skill, however colonists incapable of violence will outright refuse to man a mortar.

Always remember to manually unassign colonists from mortars; if you don't, they will continue standing there until they eventually collapse from exhaustion, starvation, or have a mental break.

An important point to remember is that while your colonists are better at dealing with single or spread-out enemies, mortars are designed for heavily grouped enemies. If you diffuse your enemies, the mortars will not be able to hit the enemies easily.

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.

Usage

• Assign colonists inept at combat to man mortars.
• Aim at least 16 tiles away from your soldiers and allies to prevent friendly fire.
• Fire on static targets, or aim ahead of moving ones.

Counter

• Stay inside the 30-tile blind spot when safe to approach.

Explosive mortar

The most straightforward way of bombarding enemies, this simply involves building regular explosive mortars. Each mortar shell deals great amounts of explosive damage.

Usage

• Aim around 4-8 mortars at each group of enemies.
• Use only against large groups of enemies.

Counter

• Most shield belts can absorb 1 hit from the mortar.
  • Against these enemies, fire at them with the EMP mortar first (see below).
• Spread your fighters apart, or keep moving.

Incendiary mortar

These deal low damage, penetrate shields and set areas on fire. The fire can cause disruption among the enemy ranks, as they frantically run trying to put out the flames.

Be careful with incendiary mortars as the fires can spread across wide areas, potentially causing extensive collateral damage.

Usage

• Set entrenched or shielded enemies on fire to make them vulnerable.
• Constantly disrupt siege camps with its incendiary blasts.
• Pair with brawlers for additional flame damage as melee attacks stop enemies from extinguishing them.

Counter

• Immediately draft nearby colonists to put out their burning comrades.
• Firefoam poppers can rapidly extinguish fires and fireproof a region.

EMP mortar

A situational weapon that can't deal any physical damage, but stuns mechanoids, shuts down shields and detonates mortar shells lying on the ground. They have a massive blast radius that can easily catch a sizable group of threats at once.

Usage

• Instantly down the shields of a large melee charge.
• Stunlock a large group of mechanoids, leaving them unable to fight back.
• Detonate hostile mortar shells and disable mortars for a quick solution to a siege.

Counter

• N/A (since enemies don't use EMP mortars)

Thrown explosives

Commonly encountered in raids, thrown explosives are cheap and effective, yet short-ranged.

Counter

• Deprive them of any nearby cover to expose them.
• Constantly move to avoid them and throw enemies off-aim.
• Shoot them down before they get in range.

Frag grenades

These deal heavy damage in a small radius a short time after landing.

Usage

• Deal heavy damage to entrenched raiders.
• Pair with distractions to allow grenadiers to close in to the enemy ranks.

Counter

• Evacuate colonists to avoid the damage. Keep watch on all times so you can catch them in time.

Molotov cocktails

A makeshift incendiary that explodes instantly on impact.

Usage

• Use it as a quick and easy source of fire that can light up anywhere you wish.
• Smoke out entrenched or shielded raiders if given distraction.

Counter

• Immediately draft nearby colonists to put out their burning comrades as well as any burning structures nearby.
• Estimate where the molotov will land and evacuate colonists accordingly.

EMP grenades

These do no physical damage but has a variety of useful purposes. They have a fuse.

Usage

• Aim ahead of enemy melee charges to take down shields.
• Alternate between groups of mechanoids to constantly lock them down.
• Disable enemy turrets while they are distracted.

Counter

• Evacuate shielded colonists from the area of effect so they don't wind up without shields in the face of gunfire.
• Do not rely on turrets to take down the enemy.

Handheld

Longer-ranged than thrown explosives, but otherwise acts like them.

Incendiary launcher

A medium-distance incendiary weapon that functions much like the molotov cocktails. The difference is that you can't aim it at anywhere- the target has to be a structure or a pawn.

Usage

• Quickly and easily expose entrenched or shielded enemies from a relatively safe distance.

Counter

• Immediately draft nearby colonists to put out their burning comrades as well as any burning structures nearby.
• Shoot them with medium-long ranged weapons.

Rocket launchers

The most dangerous of them all due to their long range and high damage explosive attacks that can easily down, maim or kill several pawns at once.

Distraction

Raiders with rocket launchers get distracted quite easily, wasting their rocket launcher on animals or lone colonists. This can be exploited simply by doing a melee rush against them, while equipped with shield belts. They may fire it off at your rushers, whose shields will block the blast. This can happen even at point-blank, with the rocketeers injuring many of his comrades and themselves even if you fail to down the enemy.
Often the melee soldiers will reach them before they can aim their rocket launcher, forcing them into hand-to-hand combat and eventually causing them to be overwhelmed, dropping their rocket launcher which can be captured for future use.

This is somewhat risky as your colonist's shields are 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.

You have to make that colonist the only available target for them to consider attacking. If they have a better target with less possible friendly fire, they will also attack them instead. To combat this, have your ranged attackers stay out of line-of-sight, coming out only when the rocket launchers are expended or dropped.

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

Doomsday rocket launcher

Fires a large incendiary cluster-burst that injures a large group of targets while setting them on fire, and can penetrate walls with its incendiary bursts.

Usage

• Aim at a large group of enemies to injure them, then finish them off with other weapons.

Counter

• Distract them such that they fire far away from any structures.
• Space out defensive forces to reduce the number of them caught in the explosion.

Triple rocket launcher

Fires a 3-round salvo of high-damage rockets with a small blast radius.

Usage

• Aim at tough enemies or priority targets that need to be eliminated.

Counter

• Distract them with expendable pawns such as animals.
• Space out defensive forces to reduce the number of them caught in the explosion.
• Block the rockets with durable walls.

Humanoid assaults

Sieges

During a siege, raiders go to a location outside your base, receive materials via drop pod and will proceed to build a simple mortar camp. The mortar camp will generally have 2 mortars (incendiary or regular varieties) and sandbags surrounding the mortars facing your base.

• 

  Siege camp under construction.

• 

  Finished siege camp with 2 incendiary mortars.

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

You can choose to either assault the mortar camp or wait it out and repair the damage as best as you can. The choice mainly depends on the surroundings of the mortar camp and your base's position.

Deep tunneling

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 effective defensive 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.

Do not excessively rely on covering below mountains, as the raiders will continuously siege the colony even if you're in hiding. Eventually you will need to face off against the raiders, unless you're lucky and get friendlies or a common enemy that is strong enough to defeat the raiders.

Camp assault

If you assault their camp, 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. Killing them early enough will result in most of their items remaining intact, which you can take for yourself.

Unlike most defensive situations, this time they will have the advantage of good cover on their side. You will have to find suitable cover, such as rock chunks, which you can fire from.

One method of assault is to snipe the mortars under construction. During this time, they have much lower health, and destroying them causes the enemy's resources to be wasted.

Early interception

The best time to attack them is when they've just started building up their camp. At this time their resources would have arrived, and they will be busy loading them up into the blueprints to build their rudimentary base.

Attacking them at this time means that they will be forced to use rock chunks just like you do, instead of having the superior sandbags on their side. They also don't have any mortars set up yet that can fire on you.

Do not attack them too early otherwise they will flee before they receive their supply drops, which you could've stolen had you attacked later.

Sneak attack

If you don't have the strength to attack directly, you can wait for them to sleep at night, then use the opportunity to set your colonists into position for a sneak attack.

Once someone receives an injury, everybody will wake up, so be sure to have everything in place.

1. Creep very close to them (no more than 3 tiles away), then unload your guns on the exposed raiders. Nearly every bullet will connect, taking them down with ease.
   • After being woken up, they will scramble towards the closest source of cover, buying you a few more seconds of time to shoot them or to retreat.
2. Brutally wake up the enemy by sending brawlers in, prioritizing dangerous enemies like snipers first.
3. Steal their supplies and wait for them to send more. Free food and mortar shells!
4. Burn the enemy with fire, a task made much easier while they are off-guard. This will eventually force them out to attack after suffering from heavy losses.
   • Lighting the mortars on fire allows them to be destroyed with ease.
   • Draft colonists with molotov cocktails, then surround the camp with fire. They will wake up to realize they are surrounded by a raging sea of fire, and put forward their futile efforts to controlling it.

Countering with mortars

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

Regular mortars are somewhat average against sieges. They are inaccurate, but can deal heavy damage to tight groupings of raiders, ignoring all cover but solid walls in the process. If you're lucky, you can 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.

Melee charges

Full melee charge at the edge of the map, with everyone shielded and equipped with melee weapons.

Pirates or Outlanders can come with all-melee charges complete with shield belts. This can prove an extreme threat to colonies, especially as they charge towards the colonists directly with their shield belts blocking large amounts of gunfire or trap damage.
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. Let them hold off the melee rush in the front while the shooters fire at them from behind.

If you happen to not have enough brawlers to handle the charge, attempt to concentrate fire to break individual 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.

Weapons

Sniper rifles are capable of breaking a weaker shield with a single shot. Combined with their long range, this makes them a good supporting weapon to weaken an incoming charge.
When they close in, use high-DPS single-target weapons to break down their shields.

Explosive weapons are useful at breaking their shields, though the shields block the entire explosion so a single explosion won't hurt them much.
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 or mortar barrages. A lucky hit with an EMP mortar can take out most of the shields in a melee raid.

The Firefoam popper is an extremely effective option for dealing with an all-melee charge. In addition to spreading a wide field of foam over the ground that slows down anyone walking over it, the popper will deplete shields, stripping melee attackers of their crucial protection and leaving them wide open to being mowed down by concentrated gunfire.

Sappers

Sappers will mine and blast their way through any obstacles, such as natural or constructed walls, though avoiding high-health ore veins. They will also try to circumvent your defenses to attack from another direction. In an open base, sappers can usually be treated as a normal bunch of raiders. However, they are a great threat to killbox-dependent, mountain or walled bases, or any form of defense that doesn't rely on colonists.

Their grenadiers and miners deal heavy damage to structures; even the toughest plasteel walls will not stop them for long. They will also persistently try to tunnel into your base, continuing even if their digger is killed or the raiding party is under attack.

Strategy

Do not rely on perimeter walls or natural rock walls to hold them off due to their immense damage against structures.

With enough manpower, you can choose to intercept them while they're tunneling into your base. They tend not to use cover when tunneling, so you can catch them by surprise. Concentrated fire is devastating in a tunnel, and you can quickly dispatch any diggers, provided you don't get noticed first.

If you're in a mountain base you can draft a few melee pawns to wait at the entrance, as well as a few ranged pawns facing the entrance to fire down the tunnel. When they do break in you will already have prepared to face the raiders and can pour a stream of lead right into their face or cut them into pieces.

You can 'funnel' sappers by using turrets placed inside your base; sappers will avoid these, and will go to an area without the turrets. Keep in mind that you will have to kill them by drafting colonists instead of relying on your turrets.

If you have the time and resources, try placing an IED trap right behind the rock wall that a sapper is trying to tunnel through, to catch them by surprise with an explosive blast. This is especially effective if it's placed right on the other side of a loose rock chunk (easily found in tunnels), which will slow down any enemies stepping over it enough that they won't be able to retreat in time.

Aftermath

Remember to cover up any tunnels or gaps in your defenses as they open up an opportunity for raiders to come straight into your base. You may fortify it and turn it into a booby-trapped chokepoint to catch unsuspecting raiders seeking direct entry.

Drop pod attacks

Sometimes pirates or mechanoids will come in drop pods. If they land at the edges, they can be treated as a normal raid party, unless you have expanded to the edges, in which they will land inside your base.
To defend against this, have a second line of defenses inside your base so you can deny the drop-podders easy entry into your base.

The main danger comes in landing right in the center of your base. Capable enemies not using alternative strategies such as sieges or sappers have a 10% chance of doing so.

Once they choose to land there, things will get ugly. By landing in the middle, they bypass most of your conventional defenses, and you can't use your cover advantage against them. Trying to bombard them with mortars or use other explosive weapons also causes great collateral damage to your structures, assuming they didn't land within the mortar's minimum range blind spot.

Fortunately for you, they have a short delay (520 ticks (8.67 secs) to be exact) before they open and all hell breaks loose. They also come in smaller numbers than regular raids.

Is is important to note that drop pod-capable raiders will break through constructed roofs on their way down, allowing them to land inside rooms and buildings. This can put not only your colonists, but your stockpiles in grave danger, as well, especially if they landed near your volatile mortar shells, chemfuel stores, or batteries. Breaking through roofs can also ruin your temperature control, causing food to rot in the freezer or fertilized eggs to die. However, enemies that land in rooms will be surrounded by your own walls and doors, potentially allowing you to cordon them off by blocking the exits. Enemies in drop pods cannot deploy in tiles beneath an "Overhead mountain", so tunneling deep underground can make safe rooms.

Strategy

Once you see them land, you should immediately draft any nearby armed colonists to the site, whether they are your designated soldiers or not. Let them hold off the attackers for a while before your soldiers arrive to help. You have less than 9 seconds before they open, not enough for a soldier to get halfway across the map to help.
Any non-combatants should immediately be evacuated to a nearby area. They may still stay close to help in rescue efforts, pulling out any downed colonists. Make sure it's safe to rescue them- as in rescuers not walking right through the crossfire and back again to get a colonist to the hospital. You may need to forbid doors to prevent them from walking through the firefight into a hospital.

Like other raids, humanoid raiders will attempt to flee after receiving heavy losses; however, if they land inside enclosed areas of your base, they will be trapped allowing your colonists to down and capture them at leisure. You simply need any blunt weapons or even bare fists; in their panic, they won't try to fight back until you're well into beating them up.

Cover

You should use your furniture or wall corners as cover and fire from behind them. You can also have 2 colonists hiding behind each doorway; they enjoy full cover while firing into the room. Hold the doors open, otherwise they can't fire. Be careful as pirates will also utilize the furniture as cover as well; to combat this, attack from multiple sides or use melee fighters.

It's not practical to build sandbags inside your rooms as they reduce the Beauty of the room. Drop pod attacks are much rarer than normal raids and the enclosed space can make cover less effective. If you have larger bases, you can leave some sandbags outside for these situations, but take care not to let the enemy use them.

You can also use any shielded or heavily armored colonists as meat shields to soak some damage. Send them right in front of your regular ranged units to block damage, while the ranged units fire over their shoulders.

Fire management

As most furniture is flammable, you will need to extinguish any fires if you want to prevent damage. One option is to reinstall and trigger a firefoam popper right inside, which also fireproofs the room preventing any further fires.

If you prioritize the defeat of the raiders over the loss of your property, and the walls of the room are fireproof, you can simply let fires burn, or even start some more, while you evacuate the room and close the doors, cooking the raiders alive. Watch out for fire and heat spreading to nearby rooms.
Not effective against mechanoids as they aren't affected by temperature and cannot be set on fire. Incendiary weapons need to score direct hits on them to deal damage.

Equipment

CQB weaponry such as heavy SMGs, pump shotguns, chain shotguns or melee weapons work best to deal with drop pod attacks.
Mid-range high-DPS weapons like the charge rifle or the LMG are also good for clearing out larger rooms.

Long-ranged weapons are less effective due to the confined nature of indoor spaces giving them less space to work effectively, and their lower damage output compared to other weapons.

Explosive, incendiary or crowd control weapons make excellent room-clearing weapons, but are not recommended except in dire situations due to the heavy collateral damage when using them indoors.

Tribal raids

Tribal raiders arriving in large numbers, with so many that their name labels are visually blocking some of the raiders themselves.

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

Overall, they can deal heavy damage to your colonists; despite not carrying guns or advanced melee weapons, their neolithic weapons can still dish out heavy damage, especially when combined with their sheer numbers. Tribals also tend to be better at combat, with most tribals being acquainted to some combat skill or another.
However, as tribalwear is awful at protection (depending on the material it may even be none) and they do not wear any form of armor, they are easier to kill individually than other raiders.

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.
Warriors are less of a threat as they don't use shields (unlike their pirate counterpart, the mercenary slasher), making them vulnerable to your gunfire.

Removing rock chunks from the field before a raid helps in dealing with tribal raiders hiding behind them, making them much easier to hit.

Weapons

You will need sufficient mid-long range firepower to take down tribal archers from a distance, for getting close to them in order to fire your guns is pretty much suicide. Long-ranged weapons beyond 32 tiles can effectively hit archers at maximum range, matching or outranging them.

Close-mid ranged weapons that have high stopping power are good for taking down warriors, or archers that come too close to your defenders.

Crowd control is an important aspect in defeating tribal raids. The Minigun is an extremely effective weapon to use as it can easily mow down groups of archers hiding behind cover. Aim at a spot right behind them, or someone standing in the middle, and the minigun will hit many of them with a barrage of bullets.

Explosive weapons are also useful in crowd control, when used correctly.

• Rocket launchers are single-use, but devastating on crowds. A single hit can easily kill or cripple the unprotected tribals.
• Explosive mortars, while inaccurate, can easily destroy a sizable group of tribals at once if they hit.
• Grenades can hit archers hiding behind cover, taking out a few of them, though you have to risk a colonist or two in order to even get close enough to throw them.
• Incendiary weapons are good at getting pesky archers out of cover for your colonists to hit.

Pacification

If you don't want tribes to send their warriors in the hundreds, you should capture, heal and release all incapacitated tribals (though if you see any good potential colonists you should keep them). Later on, when the relations warm a little, you can give them silver to pacify them, and even turn them to your side.

Mechanoids

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

In many 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.

Unlike humanlike raiders, they do not flee, meaning that all of them have to be taken out to neutralize the threat.

They are highly vulnerable to EMP damage, which can stun them, rending them completely unable to fight back. This can open a window of opportunity where you safely engage at close range, or even with melee.

Scythers

Scythers are capable of long-range sniping attacks, and are extremely deadly with melee. However, they never use cover and rarely actively engage in melee.

If fighting from a distance, cover along with high-damage, long-ranged weapons such as sniper rifles or bolt-action rifles are vital. Since Scythers aren't particularly good shooters (97% accuracy, corresponding to a level 10 shooter), you can outperform them at range with higher-skilled snipers, especially when using the sniper rifle, which deals a higher damage per shot, outranges the charge lance and is slightly more accurate.

Despite its high melee damage, sometimes melee fighting them may actually be better, as long as you have good armor and weapons. If you don't have very good long range firepower, it's better to try and get them into close quarters ranged combat due to their limited durability and because their superior long range firepower will be redundant at this point. A one-on-one melee brawl with a scyther can usually be won by a well-equipped colonist.

Scythers are vulnerable to deadfall traps, with only a few hits required to kill them.

Be prepared to lose a limb or two when fighting scythers, for they are capable of dealing high damage blows.

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 will burn down your base if you're not careful. They are incredibly durable, sporting thick armor and high health, and can take many hits before being downed.

Centipedes wielding the Minigun and Heavy Charge Baster can be cheesed simply by spreading out your colonists widely enough, with 3-tile gaps between each colonist. The centipede will attempt to target your colonists, but be unable to hit due to the forced miss radii.
The Inferno cannon is not as destructive towards your fighters, 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. Spacing apart colonists can limit the number of colonists hit at once, making it easier to manage.

There aren't many good choices when dealing with a centipede except to shoot it with your guns, despite their high resistance against sharp damage. One good thing is that its large size makes it much easier to hit with ranged attacks.
Engaging it in melee is not recommended due to its armor, high health and heavy damage. A centipede deals enough blunt damage per hit to blow off an unprotected hand or foot, and if it has a minigun or heavy charge blaster it can eviscerate your colonist at point-blank before you can get the victim to escape.

Its slow speed and relatively poor blunt armor makes it an excellent target for explosive mortars. Often you can pull off a few blows before it even reaches firing range, severely weakening it. However, if you have mortars and the shells anyway, it's always better to use EMP mortars instead as these will heavily damage and easily disable Centipedes.

Crashed ships

Sometimes a crashed ship part will land on the map. They can have harmful effects such as reducing colonists' mood, killing any nearby plants or occasionally driving nearby animals mad. You cannot deconstruct the part, so you will need to shoot/ hit it until it is destroyed. When you damage the part, mechanoids will swarm out to 'defend' the ship.

As the mechanoids don't come out until you damage the ship or try to build right next to it, you have plenty of time to prepare. However, you don't have infinite time, either- poison ships can spread toxic material across the map, killing all plants in reach (wild or not), causing serious losses to pastures or crops, and psychic ships are able to project powerful psychic waves driving animals mad and sending colonists' mood plummeting.

Weapons

High-DPS weapons are optimal at destroying both the ship part and its defending mechanoids. Range does not matter that much as you can simply build sandbags close to the ship for effective cover.

Due to the mechanoids spawning very close together after spawning, the minigun is extremely effective. The minigun can also be used to quickly demolish the ship part with its unparalleled DPS. Aim at the ship part and it will hit a lot of the mechanoids near it as well.

Explosive weapons are useful, but keep in mind that the ship part will block the explosion, so a single explosion cannot wipe out all the mechanoids. Like the minigun, they do heavy damage to the ship part.

Incendiary weapons are a poor choice for any situation involving mechanoids or crashed ships, given that both are non-flammable and only take minimal burn damage.

Zoning animals

When dealing with a crashed psychic ship part that has been there for some time, do not let any of your tamed animals near it, for the ship part can drive them into manhunter mode. This is additionally harmful as they are capable of opening doors to attack your colonists.

Constructing around the ship part

If you plan on shooting them, build sandbags or walls around the ship part as cover.

You should build EMP mortars to stun the mechanoids, making them helpless hunks of metal. As they tend to spawn very tightly packed, the EMP mortar blasts are extremely effective against them, being able to stun a large number at once. As the ship part also blocks EMP pulses, build multiple mortars to fire a volley, in order to hit all the mechanoids at once.

Building IED traps right next to the ship will instantly trigger the ship's mechanoids to swarm out. However, building them 1 tile away does not trigger it, allowing you to use them to weaken a mechanoid swarm. Don't build too many or you will vaporize the mechanoid corpses, which can be deconstructed for resources at a Machining table.

Luring to base

If you want to use existing defenses, you should have a kiting colonist shoot the ship once with long-ranged weaponry, then instantly make a break for it back to your base. You can usually treat it as a normal mechanoid raid against your base, especially if the ship part is far enough away.

After the mechanoids are dealt with, simply draft a few leisurely fighters to use the ship as target practice. No more mechanoids will spawn afterwards.

Manhunter packs

Animals in a manhunter pack can arrive in massive numbers, or include a few large but deadly animals.

They are not sophisticated in their attacks; they come in a tight pack, will not actively attack structures without being provoked, and are only capable of using melee (though some can explode upon death for destructive results).

While some animals can be outrun, they can still cause great disruption in outdoor activities as your colonists constantly run and cower to avoid the incoming horde.

Animals

In Alpha 17 any animal can be part of a manhunter pack. Each kind has its own statistics, and can be roughly grouped as follows:

• Small: Small-sized animals that don't pack a punch on their own. However, they tend to come in massive numbers and their small size makes it harder to hit. Some of them also run faster than regular humans.
• Medium: Medium-sized animals. They do moderate damage, and some can run fairly fast.
• Medium and fast: Medium-sized animals that can run fast enough to easily outpace humans. Some deal heavy damage for their size.
• Predatory: Medium to large-sized animals that specialize in hunting prey. They run fast, and pack a punch. Very dangerous.
• Large and scary: Large-sized animals that have high melee DPS up close. Most of them are somewhat so they can be outran and kited.
  • Thrumbos are more of a category of their own, with extreme health, deadly melee and fast speed, all together.
• Explosive: Animals that explode on death such as boomalopes or boomrats.

Weapons

High DPS weapons are good at taking down packs at close to medium range.
Assault rifles and bolt-action rifles work to provide decent long-distance firepower when paired with other high damage weapons.

The sniper rifle works well against larger animals, but is a risky pick against small animals which are hard to hit, as a missed shot is punishing due to its long reload.

The Minigun is an excellent weapon against manhunter packs of any size. At a distance, it can destroy the tightly packed groups of incoming animals, while at point-blank, it can rip large animals to shreds, often with just a single barrage of bullets. Aim for an animal in the middle of the pack, and many bullets will hit others around it as well.
Chain shotguns are also a good choice at defeating manhunter packs at close to point-blank range, though its short range makes it risky to use against faster enemies.

Longswords are a must-have to fight off animals at melee range, which often happens with fast-moving animals.

Explosives are excellent at clearing out manhunter packs, when used carefully. They can hit a lot of animals at once, and don't miss easily, especially against small animals which can evade bullets.

• Rocket launchers are an effective yet easy-to-use one-use solution. Be careful when using them near your base or colonists though, and disengage if animals come dangerously close to allies.
  • The Doomsday rocket launcher can obliterate a swarm of smaller animals using its giant incendiary blast.
  • The Triple rocket launcher excels against larger animals with its high damage 3-round salvo.
• Mortars aren't very useful as animals generally run faster than the mortars can hit, but if you have a kiting colonist or trained animals distracting them and you aim ahead, you can still achieve great results.
  
• Grenades are good for groups, but are too short-ranged to be safe to use against raging animals.

Kiting

Being unsophisticated in their tactics, they can be lured easily.

If you have good shooters that are fast (moving >140%; 2 bionic legs, or 1 bionic leg + go-juice, or whatever mods you're using), you can easily kite the faster animals.
The larger animals are usually much slower and any colonist that has normal Moving will do fine against them.
This is best combined with a long-range firing squad and turrets laying fire from a distance while they are chasing the colonist. Be sure that the animals do not lose track of your kiters otherwise they will switch targets and go for somebody else.

Animals vs. Animals

One good way to fight off mad animals is with... more animals! Just draft anyone with animals assigned, set the animals to Release, and set them out. Your colonists can watch safely from a distance, or take a potshot or two while watching the animals tear each other apart. Just remember to have someone mop up the bloodstains, haul the corpses of the fallen as well as finish off any survivors.

Bleeding them out

A slower strategy is to draft a colonist, place it in a door to shoot a maddened animal until it starts to bleed, then move the colonist back to safety and wait until the animal dies from blood loss. Be careful since this will draw the attention of surrounding maddened animals making them attack the door where the colonist came from so be ready to repair it immediately.

If you hit their legs they will be crippled making it easier to outrun.

This method requires time before blood loss kills or weakens the animals. It's best that you use it to kill large animals, or soften them before moving in to finish them. The lowered consciousness from blood loss can help reduce damage taken by making the animal miss its blows more often.

Turret Distraction

While turrets aren't good at fighting manhunter packs, they can distract them for your colonists, giving your colonists more time to shoot them while they are occupied by the turret.

They also explode when destroyed, potentially taking out a sizable group of animals. They won't run away from exploding turrets; only when the turret is destroyed will they switch to another target.

However, given the price of turrets, this method may be worth it only during mid-late game.

Waiting it out

If you have a perimeter wall or a superstructure base with decent food stocks, you can simply wait it out inside while they relentlessly swarm outside the walls. Some of them will exit manhunter mode once they fall asleep, and will act normally afterwards.

Remember not to let anyone outside unless your intent is to kill the animals.

They will actively attack doors if a colonist hides behind them; as a precaution, build it out of a sturdier material such as plasteel so they don't get destroyed during a manhunter attack. They will give up after a while if the doors are not destroyed. Alternatively, if the colonist is construction-capable, you can simply have him build a wall behind the door, totally preventing manhunters from entering even if they break the door.

Scavenging dead animals

Manhunter packs are a good source of meat for your colony, especially if you're low on food. If there are still maddened animals, wait until the other animals from the pack go to sleep or walk away far enough to haul the dead one(s), or get a fast colonist to try and haul the dead ones away.

Infestations

Infestations will spawn under Overhead Mountains within 30 tiles of a colony structure. They can be a serious hazard in mountain bases due to the lack of free space to run away from with too many obstacles on the path, but not so much threat in open area (flat) maps. Insectoids are lightly armored and exclusively use melee. This gives them some protection against close range attacks, but leaves them vulnerable to ranged attacks. None of them run faster than a colonist so they can be outran or kited.

If you don't destroy them fast enough, they can reproduce, giving rise to even more hives and insects. This is especially true if you happen to have forgotten about a hive, which given time can build itself into a giant mega-hive.

Behavior

Insects have a hive mindset; they will remain tending to their hive cluster, until they see an intruder, in which case they begin to engage all at once. They may also attack random furniture and structures in your colony.

Fighting infestations

The enclosed nature of mountain bases give colonists little distance to shoot from; thus, you may want some melee fighters to pair up with any ranged colonists.

Individual fighters will quickly get overwhelmed by the insects, so you shouldn't trickle your defensive forces in; rather, you should send them all at once to overpower the insects.

Try to make sure to have light sources in place, as shooting in darkness underground confers an aim malus on your colonists.

Using fire

Fire is an effective way to clear infestations during early-mid stage. If they spawn in an enclosed area with a door and plenty of flammables, all you need to do is to toss a molotov or shoot an incendiary launcher bolt into the room. The room will quickly catch fire, causing the temperature to rise fast, roasting the insects in it along with the hives.

If there aren't flammables, you can still keep shooting the hives. They can catch fire, along with the fuel puddles created on the ground. As any items inside the room are likely to catch fire and be destroyed, this tactic is not recommended in a place with many valuable buildings or your warehouses. Also be careful with the heat spreading to nearby rooms. Insects trapped in uncomfortable temperatures will quickly attempt to dig out to escape. If they don't fall unconscious fast enough they may survive to break out and attack.

Explosives

Explosives are useful against large infestations. The Triple rocket launcher can raze infestations instantly. A single use Doomsday rocket launcher will deal massive damage over a large area. Frag grenades are unlimited and work well if you have the courage to send someone to close range. One blast can get several insects.

An army of explosive animals (boomalopes or boomrats) is also effective at clearing out infestations. Have them march straight into the hive by zoning them there. When the insects attack, the animals will be injured and explode, setting the insects and hives on fire.

Mortars are useless against the hives themselves as they can't hit anything below an overhead mountain. However they work well when fighting the insects in open space, with the explosions capable of severely injuring the insects, taking out the smaller ones in 1-2 hits.

Late-stage infestations

If you've accidentally left a hive or two behind or totally ignored an infestation, after a few seasons you will have a giant hive community sprawling. This is extremely hard to treat, especially if you're low on colonists.

If you're still on early to early-midgame, it's generally recommended that you pack up and run. If not, however, you will have to deal with them slowly. You need to lure the insects out, then defeat them to buy time for others to enter and destroy the hives. Kiting is a possibility due to their slower speeds, provided they continue to chase down your colonists.

Explosives are recommended as they deal immense damage to the closely packed hives and insects. This is especially so with the doomsday rocket launcher, which can set entire infestations on fire, destroying the hives and severely weakening the insects. Explosive animals can also be aggressively used by zoning them into the infestation, causing them to detonate, igniting the hives.

Prevention

If you only have a few tiles of Overhead Mountain then it's best that you fill it up with walls to prevent any infestations from happening. If you are in a mountain base, then you will need to do more than that.

Baiting

You can mine out rooms a distance away from your colony to somehow control insects to nest there, instead of letting them spawn right in the middle of your base. Place some cheap burnable furniture inside to confuse the insects into thinking it's a prospective nesting spot, as well as to light on fire for a quick solution to an infestation problem.

A well-lit base discourages insects from nesting, though it can still happen. If you bait insects to spawn elsewhere the chance of an infestation spawning inside is greatly reduced.

If you want the insect trap to automatically kill insects, put an IED incendiary trap inside the room, and fill it with flammables like Chemfuel. Once an infestation spawns the insects will trigger the trap, lighting the flammables on fire and broiling the insects.

Alternatively, fill it with a few deadfall traps to weaken them before they strike your base, giving you the advantage. It also preserves the hives, which can be either good or bad.

Prison breaks

If you have prisoners (or potential colonists or hats) on hand, always expect them to break out any time. This is more so if you have many of them, each one ready to incite a riot whenever the guards aren't looking.

Escaping prisoners can open any colony door, and will snatch weapons whenever they see one.

Strategy

You should bodyblock the prisoners with armored wardens carrying a blunt weapon as the frontline combatant. They will fight and down the prisoners while blocking their exit, buying time for reinforcements.

Against already injured yet unarmed prisoners, draft a brawler and beat them up with bare fists. Send 1 brawler per prisoner to minimize the risk of beating them to death.
2 unarmed wardens can tackle a full-health unarmed prisoner without either being downed in most cases.

Ranged wardens should attack when the prisoners are blocked by melee wardens so they can attack from a distance without much danger, and their weapons won't land in the enemy hands so easily.

Weapons

You goal here isn't to kill the prisoners, it's to down them so you can recapture them.

• Blunt melee weapons such as the mace is a good choice for wardens to down escapees. The wounds don't bleed, nor will they be infected, giving them higher survival chances overall.
• At a distance, use moderate DPS weapons that won't deal too much damage to the prisoners, or to your people when the prisoners pick them up.
• Don't use high damage per hit weapons such as sniper rifles or longswords, as you risk instantly killing them or cutting out an important part.

Turrets

Turrets can be used as a form of distraction and supplementary firepower against prison breaks. Station them outside the prison doors, and they will fire on the escapees. They deliver good stopping power at short ranges, and leave no viable weapons that can be picked up. Prisoners also tend to stop to fight the turrets, giving wardens time to reach them.

1-2 is enough for most prisons. Don't put too many otherwise the turrets may kill the prisoners before you can intervene.

Ambushes

Defensive battles don't always happen at base. Sometimes it may happen far away from it, striking one of your caravans, perhaps loaded with plenty of silver. Or maybe they creep to your traders and demand ransom, which you don't feel like paying. You always need to be prepared for ambushes when you send out caravans.

Escort

Sending just one or two colonists in any caravan is poorly advised except in very short-distance and light trips as they will not be able to fend off an ambush. In this case it's best that you have a combat-capable escort member which can carry some items and can fight.

If you have lots of attack animals, you can also send just 1 colonist skilled in handling, and a lot of animals. They can swarm any incoming attackers, and you can leave colonists back at base for work. Grazing animals work best, as their ability to obtain food from their surroundings offsets their usually slower speed.

Ambush site

The ambush site is small, restricting the space where you can conduct your battle. This renders many tactics obsolete, such as long-ranged sniping or kiting. You will often have to face off the enemy in a direct gunfight or brawl.

Besides this, you can't escape the fight until it's over, leaving colonists no choice but to fight back.

Cover and positioning

Excellent defensive position against ambushes. Colonists behind walls will enjoy up to 75% full cover, while pirates will only receive 25% at most. Two brawlers are ready to execute a melee sortie at any time. Combined with good equipment, this allows the fight to be won with few injuries even when outnumbered.

You should be hiding behind walls for cover, as they can provide up to 75% cover, way more than the 50% given by rock chunks. If not, then hide behind rock chunks. Space out your defenders to reduce the amount of collateral damage the pirates deal.

If you have time, go somewhere where there is cover for you, but not the enemy. This gives you a significant upper hand in defensive battles.

Melee sorties or rushes work well if you have brawlers for they can traverse the short distances.

Items

You will need to bring some items so you can be prepared for a surprise attack.

Weapons

You usually don't have weapons to switch in a caravan unless you're bringing more than you need with you, so choosing the right weapons for your escort party is important.

• High-DPS weapons are optimal for dealing with ambushes.
• Long-ranged weapons are good for taking down targets at medium-long range or those trying to flee the battle.
• Miniguns are extremely good against tightly-packed raiders hiding behind cover in an ambush. However, their heavy weight and movement speed reduction means you may want to reconsider bringing one.
• Melee weapons can help fight off enemy brawlers, or used to disrupt enemies behind cover. You should have at least 1 melee fighter in each escort.

Medicine

You should have some medicine handy so your colonists can patch themselves up after the battle. Bring a doctor along with you as well, or two, just in case one of them goes down.

Herbal medicine will do for most cases, but if you want to improve treatment quality to reduce infection chances you can use regular medicine.

Aftermath

Rudimentary prison cell for capturing prisoners on-the-go. It's crude, but will have to do.

Sometimes a few of your colonists may be downed. If you were facing up against incendiary weapons you may also see fires starting to spread.

Immediately put down medical sleeping spots a distance away from the battlefield, preferably somewhere non-flammable such as rock floors, if there is fire. Afterwards, direct your doctors to treat the wounded.

If there is a downed enemy that you want to capture, you will have to quickly build a small hut using whatever materials are at hand. A 3x4 hut with a 1x2 interior along with a door but without the corners requires 50 materials (usually wood) to build. It takes around 1-3 in-game hours so take that into account before trying to capture a prisoner who will bleed to death shortly. Ramember to take into account the great slowing effect downed prisoners have on caravan speed.

If there are resources around you can harvest them to make your supplies last longer.

After everything is settled; prisoners captured, colonists treated, manually reform the caravan, and choose which items you will bring with you, leaving the rest behind. If you have downed or dead colonists or pack animals you will need to manually pick up their dropped items through the reform menu.

For strategies against threats, see Defense tactics.

Raids are frequent and numerous as they don't journey towards your base from their "camp" but just spawn on your map. Enemies don't worry about their base as much as players do. Because of this, additional measures need to be taken into account. This can make a significant difference in defensive strength against raiders, besides defeating them using clever tactics.

Basically, players have to fight the same enemy AI programming for each type of hostile but the approach to it may differ according to gameplay preferences, either face to face for a more combative experience, behind killboxes for a less threatening measure, or both combined.

Terrain features

Before laying blueprints, first inspect the natural features that can work as defenses, such as ancient structures, marshes, mountains and rivers.

Moats

Water or marsh tiles can be used as a moat which will greatly slow down the enemy's progression, giving you time to shoot them down. This is a way to make use of water tiles which obstruct the construction of a full wall by turning the water into a strategic location, such as a chokepoint.

Marsh used as moats to slow enemy advance, with little islands full of deadfall traps.

Mountains

For most map tiles, mountains can be incorporated into part of your defensive walls. You may also build a fortified panic room below the mountains for use during sieges or raids that are too hard to defeat.

In mountainous tiles you can choose to dig into the mountain, or find an area surrounded by mountains on 3 (or even 4) sides, then fortify with walls. Both make excellent defensive positions against most types of raiders (except sappers).

Overhead mountains may also be used as deadly traps, detailed below.

Early-game defense

At the very beginning your most primitive security choices are deadfall traps, sandbags and stone chunks. You will need to find a balance between these three so that there's enough materials available, but hauling them won't be too time-consuming. Analyze the terrain to find choke points, natural walls, and other features you can use to defend your colony.

Assuming you already raised your first wall layer, it's very likely you had to move stone chunks either to build rooms, production structures or to open a growing zone, all the while you were gathering raw materials into a stockpile zone. As you move stone chunks to open space, you might as well use that action to create the Dumping stockpile zone on the outer side of your wall, covering its width and expanding it further three tiles away. This is very helpful mostly as a fire prevention. Although literally, you didn't build any defensive structure, it still counts as a security measure, as the stone chunks will stop fire spree progression impeding natural fire from burning your wooden walls, and slow down enemies and hostile manhunter animals walking over them.

Performing this action can be time consuming, so for a short period of work, instead of expanding three tiles away, just a single line covering your entire wall width would be a good start. Your speed in this matter will be greatly affected by the number of haulers available. It becomes incredibly fast if you can tame and train intelligent animals to do the hauling for you. Then you will be able to actually build defensive structures while the animals do this chunks line for you.

Perimeter walls

The most essential building to keep threats away, so long as the base is self-sustainable inside. Many layers can be raised as you grow expansively, making the first the innermost and the latest the outermost. While the innermost may be faster to build with wood, the outermost layers can be made of stone. There's not much need to deconstruct walls in order to upgrade them, just refill them with better materials as their segments get destroyed by attacks, or demolish them if you run out of space.

Walls can make good use of surrounding hills/mountains by incorporating them into the wall and reducing both workload and materials. Marshes and water surfaces do not allow construction but can be taken advantage of as a moat.

Walls can be erected in multiple layers as well, which can deter sappers but is of course more demanding. Leave a 1-tile gap between the walls so repairmen can access each of the walls without having to go out.

Behind your walls, it is essential to have additional cover or defenses behind them, since a wall alone cannot defeat the enemy. When building lines of defenses, instead of putting the second layer right next to the first, consider leaving a gap between both so that your long-range shooters have enough distance to pick off targets long before they can be reached by melee hostiles.

Pay attention when expanding towards the edges of the map, as there's a boundary you can't build beyond that is only visible when the "Structure" tab is selected.

Strategy

Enemies mostly use melee attacks on constructions, even when firing point-blank would destroy doors and buildings faster. Walls alone can effectively fend off early game stage raids if enough repairmen can keep the walls standing while enemies start to starve and become tired. Placing several doors separated by each other by 15 to 20 tiles allows multiple exits and also a tactical benefit to fire at the same target from two or more sides when they spread out, killing them one by one.

When segments are broken through, they become chokepoints which allow your colonists to concentrate fire on. Hostiles will use your walls for cover, so make sure the inside is well-defended.

Walls are weak against explosives such as frag grenades, especially stone ones, which take 4x the damage. Grenadiers will continuously throw them, dealing heavy damage in a short time and sometimes killing their comrades who are bashing down the same spot. Target those with explosive weapons first to prevent breaches, and when your efforts are not enough, this shall signal the time to retreat backwards to your inner walls or any other defensive structure inside.

Walls are excellent structures to protect from Predator attacks and Manhunter packs, which don't target colonists safely behind them. However, if a colonist is seen passing through doors, they will attempt to break them down.

Cover management

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. Enemies can also use cover to their advantage, so you should be careful of that as well.

Low cover does not seem to stack when placed in a double layer. It does, however, stack if pawns are shooting across it diagonally so that bullets cross two pieces of low cover, and even though the cover will operate at decreased efficiency due to such an angle, having two or more pieces of it in the way can lead to a greater total cover bonus than just one. For this reason, it is important to build lines of wrap-around formations of cover, rather than just single tiles of sandbags that can be rendered ineffective by fire coming from a diagonal angle.

Cover emplacements

If you're short on materials, such as during the start, you won't need to surround the whole settlement with sandbags yet. Just have short walls (~3 tiles worth) of sandbags facing the enemy to block any incoming bullets. If you're even more desperate you can use stone chunks instead of sandbags, though these operate at 50% cover efficiency as opposed to 65% for sandbags.

You should put them near your base to make it harder for enemies to take advantage of them. In the case of rock chunks, it's very worthwhile to haul away any that are sitting out in the open, so as to deny your enemies potential cover to use against you.

Perimeter sandbags

An essential defense in a base without killboxes (see below), perimeter walls or the like, this simply involves surrounding your base with sandbags. This provides great cover from gunfire, stopping 65% of the bullets that would otherwise hit your colonists. However, this does not protect against explosive weapons.

Pros

• More flexible in terms of positioning
• More complete coverage

Cons

• No protection against explosives
• More expensive than partial coverage, especially in larger bases

Bunkers

Map ruins converted into a pillbox. Shooters can lean out from the holes in the walls, and will gain cover against diagonal fire from the sandbags.

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, or convert one from the various ruins laying around. 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 for 75% protection from enemy fire.

Additionally, build a roof for your bunker so that every cell is 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 will not suffer an aim malus when it rains, and the floor they're on can remain free of movement-slowing snow.

To truly finish the bunker, add flooring so your colonists don't have to worry so much about fires while inside, and sandbags in the holes between walls to prevent enemies from gaining a diagonal angle shot bonus against your defenders.

Pros

• 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
• Flexible -- you can upgrade the design further by adding turrets and traps
• Makes it very hard for your enemies to hit your colonists since they are behind full cover
  • Full cover also stops explosive damage if the explosion happened outside the wall -- additional walls can be built behind your shooters to take advantage of this
• 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 stone blocks to get walls that are good enough to withstand sustained fire -- wood and steel just don't cut it

Pillboxes can be incorporated into perimeter walls, but make sure that there is no direct entry from there, such as by building a durable door.

Alternating sandbags

Alternating walls with sandbags can provide even better cover, is slightly cheaper (assuming use of Steel or cheaper materials) and has a chance of blocking explosives. However, depending on the material, the walls may be flammable and also have less health than the sandbags.

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. For an added bonus, build a constructed roof over your colonists' heads to shield them from rain. This tactic can be very useful if you are attacking a raider group while they're still preparing for their assault, by simply hauling a small load of steel and/or stone blocks to the construction plots and having your colonists build the fortifications before engaging in combat.

Example of advanced cover using walls.
Colonists behind walls are enjoying full cover, with 75% of shots blocked.
Colonists behind sandbags are at half cover, with 65% of shots blocked.

Pros

• Gives excellent cover
• Allows defenders to attack a wide range of targets while remaining behind cover
• Narrows the attack area, so the attackers must come straight at the defenders
• The walls stop some explosives

Cons

• May prevent colonists from ganging up on enemies
• Requires colonists to not move -- extremely dangerous if your enemies have mortars or Doomsday rocket launchers

Cover removal

While sandbags already give you an advantage over raiders in terms of cover (65% vs 50% for stone chunks), removing all sources of cover near your base is still very useful when dealing with ranged enemies as they will then have nowhere to hide.

Haul all stone chunks towards a dump behind your defensive lines so enemies can't use them. Enemy snipers can shoot from up to 45 tiles away, though most raiders can't shoot that far, so removing chunks around 30 tiles away from your defenses can deprive many enemies of suitable cover.

Watch out for your crop fields, as colonists tend to move and lay out chunks in straight lines when planting on growing zone tiles, suitable for raiders to take cover behind.

Cover baiting

Early-game example of cover baiting. Notice the rock chunks laid strategically so that shooters can lean out of doors to flank enemies hiding behind them. Enemies that reposition themselves to defend against one angle will be exposed from another, leaving nowhere safe to hide.

Once there's no suitable cover nearby, ranged attackers will scramble to find any objects usable as cover. You can exploit this by placing any form of low cover to attract them to a place where they can be dealt with more easily. Stools work good, though you should expect them to wear out quite fast under constant fire.

If the cover is hard to remove (such as plants and trees constantly regrowing in plant-rich biomes), you can manipulate stone chunks in ways that give them a disadvantage. For example, putting gaps between each chunk exposes the enemy behind to fire directed diagonally. And if your defense line is big enough, you can bait enemies into taking cover in such a way that leaves them flanked (see picture).

You can put traps behind the bait cover, which makes it slightly easier to trigger, though still less effective than chokepoints (see below).

Chokepoints

Slowing tunnel in front of a wall, with alternated sandbags for maximum slowing efficiency and a twist to break line of sight. An additional sandbag is placed to discourage raiders from using walls as cover.

Chokepoints allow your colonists to concentrate firepower, killing incoming attackers effectively, as well as utilize traps to their maximum potential. They also allow you to seal off raiders' escape routes by physically blocking them off using your soldiers.

At its simplest, it involves the use of a single opening in a wall, coupled with a location for colonists or turrets to fire and beat them, sometimes with traps to catch some of the unaware attackers.

Chokepoints should be built with a turn to break line of sight, prevent enemies from firing into the chokepoint from the outside.

A strategy is to litter the choke with sandbags or rubble, greatly slowing down the raiders and giving you time to deal with them. They also prevent raiders from standing on them, forcing them into your defenses.

You can concentrate fire on a crafting spot or animal sleeping spot placed right in the entrance with miniguns to rip incoming raiders apart.

Slowing tunnel

One early-mid game tactic to slow down your enemies is by (possibly using mountains to help) creating a narrow strip between your colony and potential areas where raiders could attack from, then alternating sandbags or debris with unoccupied space, close to the exit of the strip (the end closer to your colony obviously).

To stop them from using the chunks or sandbags to their advantage, build a turn to break their line of sight.

Don't put sandbags or chunks right next to each other, otherwise they will simply vault over multiple bags at once, reducing their slowing efficiency. An excessively long tunnel also prompts them to break in instead of entering through it.

Pros

• Fairly cheap
• Easy to build

Cons

• Does not deal damage on its own
• Short slowing time

Traps

Understanding A.I.

Friendly AI will always prefer to move through doors and avoid traps, while enemies will prefer to go around structures by entering open spaces and are unable to see traps.

Because of that, trap chokepoints like this one are effective. Enemies will prefer to use the corridors rather than attempting to destroy doors as it would be more time consuming, and being unable to see the traps, they will trip them hopelessly. While your colonists can safely take refuge using the door instead. Enemies cannot open doors unless they destroy them first.

Trap memory

Hostile factions can remember the tile location of your traps for a single quadrum, so long as any survivor manages to tell the tale by escaping the map. Factions keep this information to themselves and do not share with others. This is of course, once a trap has been triggered by someone walking over it only, causing them to attempt to avoid the tile in future attacks.

They will still walk over known trapped tiles in order to get to you, if there are no other routes available.

Deadfall traps

The only initially available defense that deals damage. Deals single-target damage, can be rearmed, and needs careful attention on it's placement. They should be placed in areas where enemies are expected to come by, but also leaving free areas so that your colonists and friendlies can pass harmlessly or else they would be seen as walls too (a good example is a checkerboard pattern).

Traps made of wood are highly flammable so its best to place them on rock or soil, far from grass or trees, while stone traps don't get burnt. All kinds of traps can be destroyed by explosions so they shouldn't be placed right in front of your walls as grenadiers are most likely to throw grenades to breach your walls while at the same time destroying your deadfall traps altogether. It is easy to determine where enemies will walk over by analyzing the terrain walk speed feature, as AI pathing will prefer ground where the speed is 100% or the highest on the intended course.

Trap chokepoints

As mentioned above, you can lay traps in chokepoints to greatly increase the chances of the enemy triggering them.

Pros:

• Passive defense as it doesn't require your immediate intervention.
• Multi-use as traps can be rearmed, making this method economical in the long run.
• Can be expanded as needed.

Cons

• High resource cost, unfeasible in resource-poor maps.
• Cannot halt large crowds or shielded enemies.
• Cannot delay enemies very long.

Roof trap

This clever trap is simple to set up and hard-hitting when triggered. It can be considered a giant single-use deadfall trap.

All you need to do is to erect 1 pillar made of a low-HP material, optimally wood, then build a roof over it. When raiders walk near the pillar, demolish it from a distance with a few long-range guns (or grenades if you're reckless). You can remove the home area near the pillar to prevent colonists from repairing it, then damage it until it can be destroyed in 1 hit.

After the pillar is destroyed, the roof will fall, crushing the raiders on the head, neck or torso and dealing up to 20 damage (though armor will negate part of it).

You can even put down some form of low cover such as stools to bait the enemy into going under the roof trap for 'cover'.
Triggering an IED trap near it is also very effective, with the advantage of being automatically triggered and dealing even more damage with its explosion.

This is technically more of a clever use of game mechanics than an actual trap, so raiders won't detect it, nor will they treat it as a trap.

Pros

• Large radius; easily injures a sizable group of raiders at once
• Penetrates shields
• Low cost; only 5 wood each for a single use
• No risk of friendly activation
• Undetectable by raiders, and position will not be remembered

Cons

• Hard to trigger; you may need to lead your targets
• Requires lots of space
• Low damage
• Rarely kills or incapacitates
• Cannot be used with killboxes easily

It is optimal for softening a group of raiders so it's easier to defeat them. You can also put them in multiple layers, but placing the traps too close will result in the trap not triggering properly.

• 

  Roof trap before triggering.

• 

  Roof trap after triggering, having injured some raiders (some through shields) and left a large pile of rubble.

• 

  More refined roof trap design with stools to lure the enemy into using them as cover, along with an IED trap to automatically trigger the trap. Significantly more expensive.

Damage minimization

These are ways to minimize damage done to your base.

Walled geothermal generator. The extra space allows heat to escape without being trapped inside. Note that the entire setup is unroofed.

Firebreaks

4-tile wide strips of metal or stone tiles is capable of stopping the spread of fires. This can negate many fires from reaching your base and burning it down.

You can build one surrounding your base, and divide the map into sections in order to control fires.

Keep in mind that building such amounts of floors usually requires huge amounts of building materials.

Walling structures

You should build an additional wall around your important structures, such as generators, power conduits or cash crops, even if you do have a perimeter wall in place. This causes raiders to prioritize other targets over these, averting destruction.

For geothermal generators, remember to have some exposed roof areas so the heat from the generator can vent out instead of being trapped inside.

Power network

It's not a good idea to have only 1 wire connect everything in your base, as one broken-down conduit can easily cause a blackout. Instead, create a backup power storage by building batteries hooked to the grid, but run through a power switch that is turned off once the batteries are charged. As a supplement, run power conduits through more than just one wall on your grid so that if you have a break in one line, you may still have power flow in another without needing to immediately build a new conduit.

Panic room

4-man panic room built inside a mountain.

You can dig out a panic room deep into the mountains or build one out of very thick walls. This provides a good escape if you know that you can't defeat an incoming group of raiders, or you are losing and need retreat, provided you manage to get to the room in time.

• If you dig one out of the mountains, you gain immunity against mortar shells and innate temperature control. You will need to make many layers of doors (at least 6 layers) as the raiders will ignore the mountain walls.
• If you build one using thick walls you have more flexibility in its positioning, and you don't need that many layers of wall - 4 layers are OK, since raiders will divert their attention to the walls as well instead of focusing down the doors.

You don't need to make the panic room big enough to accommodate the whole colony, as the point of a panic room is to preserve colonists in a dire situation so you can rebuild later on. Choose the colonists most important to you when it's time to escape to these rooms.

A panic room need the following:

• At least 4 layers of durable doors or walls to successfully block off raiders (and you may need more during mid-lategame)
• Enough food to last 1-2 days at full capacity
• Medicine for the wounded, for injury is likely during the retreat
• Joy objects (otherwise colonists may face a huge -20 mood penalty)

If you want, you can put beds and tables to make sure your colonists don't feel too bad while cooped up inside. You can also choose to put building materials to seal up the entrance with cheaper and more durable walls. Putting resources inside also helps with rebuilding, though they take up space.

While inside the panic room, if you're down on your last door or layer of wall, assign your best builder to hold the door by repairing it, and make sure the others don't go out. Disabling firefighting for covering colonists or restricting them to the panic room can help stop them from leaving.

Consider building multiple panic rooms so your colonists have another panic room within reach if a raid blocks off access to one. You can also choose to build another exit so you can flee to another panic room should the original be overrun.

Mid-late game defense

Turrets

With the low firepower and high power usage of the improvised turret in vanilla, it is not a good idea to extensively rely on them, especially in mid-late game. However they do provide decent additional fire to lay on the enemy combining with gunners, and also serve as a distraction from your more valuable colonists.

Turret-reliant perimeter defenses are generally only viable for the first several raids, after which the areas will quickly get overwhelmed each raid due to not being able to focus fire on the numerous raiders.

While protecting the outside starting area, you may want to rapidly pause the game during raids and give orders to repair damaged turrets.

Remember that raiders will run from exploding turrets, and to get your colonists to run from them as well.

Pros

• Turrets provide additional fire support that doesn't require drafting colonists
• Sandbags can be placed around turrets to give them cover from gunfire
• Turrets have a target size of 68%, making them more difficult to hit
• Turrets can be uninstalled just like furniture and re-deployed wherever they are needed, making their placement less of an issue

Cons

• Turrets can be outranged easily by rifle-armed raiders or mechanics
• Turrets require power, and suck up a lot of power when active -- but you can mitigate this with a Power switch

Building turrets out of Plasteel brings their health to 280 (up from 100), making them substantially more durable. This converts 75 of the 175 Steel cost to Plasteel, allowing you to save Steel for other jobs, and has the advantage of being less flammable.

Weaknesses

Turrets are vulnerable to explosives and EMP damage.

• Explosives deal immense damage to turrets. All forms of regular explosives wielded by raiders are capable of 1-hitting a steel improvised turret and leaving a plasteel one at less than half health.
• EMP stuns the turrets. Enemy EMP grenadiers can stun a turret for 20 seconds with each grenade, meaning they can constantly lock down multiple turrets, especially those put close together.

Turrets can be ignited, and are unable to put themselves out. Given enough time flames can debilitate the turret.

Long-ranged gunners can shoot from outside their range without retaliation from the turret. This includes Scythers with their Charge lance, making turrets less than ideal for fighting off Mechanoid incursions.

Turret emplacements

Turrets should each get their own sandbags to reduce incoming fire both to the turret and colonists behind the turret repairing/shooting. This has the added advantage of making it harder for melee raiders to run from an exploding turret.

They should be spaced out by at least 3 tiles to prevent a turret explosion from damaging other turrets, potentially causing a chain reaction. Alternatively, use high-durability walls to block explosions from damaging other turrets and your colonists.

Turret chokepoint

Putting a turreted defense in a chokepoint 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 other turrets for the same reason, as they have a chance to explode when critically damaged. Placing walls between the turrets can lessen the impact of explosions, allowing you to put them tighter, but remember walls can block line-of-sight and bullets.

Power management

Turrets should be turned off whenever not in use. However, it's hard to anticipate when they will be needed, given the random nature of events in RimWorld, and turning them on by then is usually too late.

To fix this, connect your turrets to a separate power network, reconnecting them if needed. To toggle them all at once, install a power switch in a convenient location. The power switch can be then used to easily toggle a lot of turrets at once, saving power.

Mortars

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.

It also allows you to effectively utilize your colonists who are poor at combat, as mortar accuracy is unaffected by colonist skill, however colonists incapable of violence will outright refuse to man a mortar.

Always to remember to manually unassign colonists from mortars; if you don't, they will continue standing there until they eventually collapse from exhaustion, starvation, or have a mental break.

An important point to remember is that while your colonists are better at dealing with single or spread-out enemies, mortars are designed for heavily grouped enemies. If you diffuse your enemies, the mortars will not be able to hit the enemies easily.

Don't aim mortars anywhere too close to your colonists otherwise you risk friendly fire.

Mortar emplacements

Mortar battery with 8 explosive mortars. Note the separation between the mortars, and walls to block explosions.

Mortars need to be placed outdoors, so have shelves to hold the mortar shells. Set them to accept mortar shells only otherwise your colonists will haul random objects to the shelves.

Mortars also explode when damaged. Most of the time this isn't an issue, but if you're facing against a siege, an enemy mortar shell that scores a hit on your mortars can cause a chain reaction to rip apart your entire mortar emplacement, killing any crew manning it. To fix this, separate the mortars with high-HP walls that can survive at least 1 hit from an exploding mortar. Building mortars with plasteel also allows the mortar to survive a mortar hit, provided that the mortar shells don't explode.

Mortars can't fire at anyone within 30 tiles of it, so you will need to place the mortars deep inside your base for maximum coverage. It needs to be well-protected against intruders, for enemies that survive to come close to the mortars can wreck havoc on the helpless mortar crew, so you should pay attention and unassign the mortar crew to fight if necessary. It's best that you have your colonists standing guard outside, but if you need to you can always have a few pillboxes to defend the mortar base.

Explosive mortar battery

The most straightforward way of bombarding enemies, this simply involves building regular explosive mortars.

Due to inaccuracy, it takes at least 4 mortars to be effective, and around 8 mortars will be enough for most attacks. If you really want to overpower the enemy, 12-20 is good enough for a dense hail of mortar shells for dealing with endgame-level swarms. Any more is generally overkill unless you're facing up some really slow and tough enemies (such as centipedes).

Note that shield belts can easily mitigate the damage from the mortars, so be careful when facing enemies equipped with these. It's best to use EMP mortars, detailed below.

Incendiary mortars

Incendiary mortars deal low damage, penetrate shields and set areas on fire. The fire can cause disruption among the enemy ranks, as they frantically run trying to put out flames.

It can be paired with brawlers, which allows them to close in with less firepower on them, and force the enemy into melee combat, preventing them from extinguishing the flames on them. Be careful not to hit your colonists though.

Be careful with incendiary mortars as the fires can spread across wide areas causing extensive collateral damage.

EMP mortars

EMP mortars are a highly situational weapon, yet are useful enough to warrant their placement in every well-built defense. It doesn't deal any physical damage whatsoever, but are useful against some specific enemies. It's recommended that you have around 4 in each base.

EMP mortars are a must-have in case of a mechanoid raid. They stun them for a whole 90 seconds (much longer than the reload time of the mortars), allowing your colonists to close in on them and concentrate fire, or even engage in melee safely. You can simply keep the mortars firing when engaging the mechanoids, even if you're using melee; you don't need to worry about the mortars injuring your soldiers.

They also excel at dealing with shields, instantly downing many at once with its large blast radius and high EMP damage, making them an excellent weapon against full melee charges.

Traps

As you unlock research, and obtain more manpower and resources, you can lay more traps to debilitate incoming raiders.

IED traps

Early on, you may 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 on any of the traps, and even if they do they're usually not tightly packed enough for the trap to cause serious damage. Thus, it is better if you combine traps with funneling to force the raiders together.

1 IED trap can trigger other IED traps in its explosion radius. This may or may not be desirable depending on the situation; you can easily set off a chain reaction to destroy a whole incoming raider horde, but also use up much more resources. They also damage nearby structures, such as walls or deadfall traps, so don't put too many close to each other.

• Rather than setting more IED traps near existing ones, you can just place the Mortar shells themselves, or even some Chemfuel on the ground for the same effect as a molotov cocktail blast. However, unless you can restrict them to placing just 1 of each it's more expensive to do so.
  • Chemfuel has 50 HP, just within the damage threshold of an IED trap, but the shells have 70, so you will need to pre-damage them or leave them on the ground to deteriorate first if you want to use this tactic.

IED traps have a delay before exploding, allowing some raiders to escape. Raiders will attempt to run from an exploding trap, though the fuse is short enough to catch some of them.

Pros

• High area damage
• Raiders usually less protected against explosives

Cons

• High resource cost
• Single-use, non-rearmable
• Requires research
• Does not instantly trigger

IED incendiary traps

A variant of the IED trap that sets enemies on fire. It's a more situational pick compared to the regular trap, due to its incendiary nature.

Pros

• Distracts enemies while they are on fire
• Does not have a fuse (explodes instantly)
• Penetrates shields
• Raiders usually less protected against heat damage

Cons

• Low damage
• Not effective against Mechanoids

Its use requires strong support to be effective. With that, it is a good defensive choice against heavily armored, shielded or fast enemies, with the flames providing good distraction while your colonists shoot them down.

It synergizes great with brawlers, which will prevent the enemy from attempting to extinguish the flames while fighting.

Mountain trap

An extreme version of the roof trap using overhead mountains instead of constructed roofs.

To use it, you mine out a whole mountain except a pillar in the center. Then you damage that pillar until it has just a sliver of health left (40 or less for easy activation with a single sniper rifle shot). Mining out all the rocks at once will result in your colonists getting crushed by the trap.

It is triggered the same way as the regular roof trap, and has the same effect radius except victims are instantly killed and buried. The collapsed rocks spawned after this trap is triggered can be useful or harmful depending on the situation.

Rearming it is a lengthy process as you will have to mine out lots of rocks. This does provide a decent way to train miners though.

Pros

• Instantly kills any enemy
• Leaves no corpses

Cons

• Takes much longer and is more dangerous to re-arm
  • You have to mine out everything then support the mountain roof with a low-HP wall; compare with regular roof trap which simply requires building the wall and the roofs
  • Colonists risk death if you aren't careful
• No loot or capturable downed raiders
• Overhead mountains may not be easily available

In mountainous areas where overhead mountains are abundant, this trap can absolutely destroy any incoming raids, especially when combined with funneling.

Reactive firefoam poppers

You should have some uninstalled firefoam poppers on hand. When a fire starts and you need to extinguish or control it, you can reinstall them near the fire, and trigger them.

You can also use them as an anti-shield defense as they deal damage against shields, though you should be careful with friendly fire since they down your shields as well.

Firefoam on the ground slows movement speed of pawns by about a quarter. As it covers a wide area, this can be effective as area denial to slow down charging melee attackers, especially those that also had shield belts, though it does prevent the use of fire against them.

"Attention Suppressor"

A full-size attention suppressor with a 1-wide path, built out of granite.

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-wide room, 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, which will actually be traveled 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.

A raider entering through an attention suppressor is presented with numerous blind alleys, each one of which could hold something important (in their perspective). 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.

Pros

• Effectively distracts and delays raiders

Cons

• Does not deal damage
• Takes up large amounts of space
• Expensive and time-consuming to build a lot of walls
• Makes it harder to eliminate all raiders at once

Overall, this can be a decent solution to delaying raids in early-mid game if you have the effort and materials, but as you enter mid-late game it's better that you replace the suppressor with something else (such as a killbox) which can actually bring the hurt.

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. A well-built killbox can easily neutralize the threat of raids, to the point where some players refuse to use them since it takes the fun out of the game.

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

Building

You should double wall your killboxes as the sheer firepower raining on your enemies will inevitably destroy some of your own walls by accident, allowing raiders to flood into the killbox from another direction, bypassing traps and overwhelming your defenders.

Include sources of cover from around the killbox where your colonists can fire on incoming enemies. For increased firepower you may build turrets as well.

Entryways

Any entryways of the killbox should not be straight, otherwise raiders will simply fire using the entryway as cover. Instead, you should have a turn to break line of sight, prompting the raiders to enter an area where you can get them easily. For better effect, put a grave or other similar object that raiders can't stand on.

The below shows the results of different killbox entryways.

• 

  Right design of a killbox entryway. Raiders are prompted to move into the killbox, sometimes so close that they prefer to melee attack instead of shoot.

• 

  Wrong design of a killbox entryway. Raiders are bunching up in the entryway, using its walls as cover.

Don't make your entryway excessively long, otherwise raiders will think it's not worth it going such a distance and will decide to go for something else instead. Manhunters however will still chase colonists down a long corridor or over extreme distances, so you can have some dedicated anti-manhunter killboxes with extra-long corridors for this purpose.

For better effectiveness fill the entryway with deadfall traps, some IED traps (not too close to each other, otherwise they will set off a chain reaction) to soften the raiders before you fire on them, and alternated chunks or sandbags to greatly slow them down. Make sure that the walls are durable enough to withstand explosions if you will be using them.

If your entryway is long then you will need to build doors to allow your colonists to enter without setting off your own traps or having to go through all the obstacles.

• 

  Entryway with alternating sandbags to slow raiders and doors to provide access. Slows raiders but not colonists.

• 

  Same entryway but with deadfall traps. Deals heavy damage to incoming raids but costs a lot to build.

Equipment

Colonists defending in a killbox will be shooting at a large number of targets no more than a few tiles away (usually). Thus, defenders should use close ranged high damage weaponry for firing at raiders.

• Charge rifles, heavy SMGs, pump shotguns or LMGs work good in killboxes, being able to dish out hurt at close-mid ranges.
• Chain shotguns inflict extreme pain at killbox range, even surpassing the charge rifle in DPS as long as the targets are closely grouped.
• Miniguns are excellent at attacking the bunched-up raiders inside a killbox. While it won't hit its intended target, it will hit everything right next to it, inflicting heavy damage.
  • For maximum effectiveness focus it on a crafting spot at the exit of your killbox where your colonists will face the invaders. Remember to have fortified walls as many bullets will hit them instead of the raiders.
• Bolt-action rifles or assault rifles are useful for larger killboxes for reaching further targets, though they are not recommended for smaller ones due to their lower DPS.
• Don't bother with sniper rifles as they can't deal enough hurt to be effective at close ranges.
• Grenades are good if you can time them right. Throw them at the entrance where each explosion can hit a tight group of raiders, especially if they're slowed down with obstacles. Don't throw too many otherwise you'll demolish the walls of the killbox.
• Have melee colonists with longswords standing nearby as raiders who enter your killbox may decide to melee charge you instead.

Turrets

You can put turrets in place of colonists in a killbox. They deal moderate damage at close ranges, with the restricted space of the killbox offsetting the underwhelming long-range damage of the basegame improvised turret. A few can be deployed to provide additional firepower, ensuring victory.

You may also choose to fully arm your killbox with turrets, with enough to single-handedly take out raids (especially in tandem with traps). Doing this allows you to defeat raids automatically without the need to divert colonists from other jobs, but eats up lots of power and is vulnerable to solar flares, so you will need to have a backup plan.

Situational constructs

Crashed ships

Versus Poison ship and Psychic ship: Mechanoids have long agro range around 40 tiles from their spawn point. The larger the map, the easier it can be to deal with them, as long as the ship crashes away from your base. Though these ships are "time bombs", instead of immediate action, you can spend a few days building preparations before engaging them. Use the "Plan" feature in the Orders menu to draw a 40 tiles straight line so that you can have a visual length field and build one or two "Fire Walls" based on your weaponry. With bows of 30 tiles range, you will need a middle wall and a last wall, the first just to lure them with cover and the second to fire at them. Place some deadfall traps right in front of your sandbags, and rearm them as needed. Always make sure you have a safe pathing between your last wall and your base, so that when you see them coming fast at you, there's safe cover nearby until they retreat back to the ship, at which point you can repeat the same procedure.

You should use EMP mortars to stun the mechanoids, making them helpless hunks of metal. As they tend to spawn very tightly packed, the EMP mortar blasts are extremely effective against them, being able to stun a large number at once. As the ship part also blocks EMP pulses, build multiple mortars to fire a volley, in order to hit all the mechanoids at once.

Building IED traps right next to the ship will instantly trigger the ship's mechanoids to swarm out. However, building them 1 tile away does not trigger it, allowing you to use them to weaken a mechanoid swarm (though you may have to manually trigger them). Don't build too many or you will vaporize the mechanoid corpses which can be deconstructed for resources.

---

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

---

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