My strategy for taking out Raiders

[Moonblink]

I was not aware of this my self and figured I would share this for others who might be having a hard time with raiders who have grenades and what not.

1. As soon as you see raiders Pause the game (spacebar)
2. Select all of your people by right clicking and dragging a box around them.
3. Since you have all of your people selected you only have to press the "R" key and they will all concentrate fire on one raider.
4. Kite the raiders into your gun turrets.
5. Use cover like sand bags and rocks.

I know some people already know this so no need to post if you do. This is for people who have not figured this out yet.

[colonistPally]

I was not aware of this my self and figured I would share this for others who might be having a hard time with raiders who have grenades and what not.

1. As soon as you see raiders Pause the game (spacebar)
2. Select all of your people by right clicking and dragging a box around them.
3. Since you have all of your people selected you only have to press the "R" key and they will all concentrate fire on one raider.
4. Kite the raiders into your gun turrets.
5. Use cover like sand bags and rocks.

I know some people already know this so no need to post if you do. This is for people who have not figured this out yet.

Yes this is what I call "StarCraft" mode. Other hints include keeping your defending colonists away from your turrets (so they don't blow). You can try to keep someone near the turret to repair but you have to keep re-pausing to carefully micromanage. Also learn which firearms your colonists have. There are a couple of rifles you get later on with something like double the distance of a turret and you can take out almost all of the attackers from far, far BEHIND your turrets. Then concave from one side. And use lots of sandbags!!!! On video #4 of Colony 9 I repel attackers of equal numbers with 0 losses just by how I have my firearms, turrets, and sandbags.

Again though if I had two mini colonies instead of a big one with my butt to a mountain I probably would have been hosed about 5 attacks ago.

Anyway for an effective defense forget shotguns, molotovs, uzi's, and grenades. And as soon as you can, swap out all of your pistols for rifles. You want everyone with a rifle or some kind of launcher. The absolute longest range rifles possible. You can sell the rest to the traders which is a little tricky to set up but I explain it in Colony 9 vid 4 also. Bla bla I'm rambling now, it's a lot of tricky stuff. I'm sorry.

[Cdr.Keen]

a large hallway with sticky bombs - just place them in a row. each bomb will detonate the next bomb while the raiders pass and it usually ends up without shooting one bullet. also the visual effekt is glorious.

[OobleckTheGreen]

I typically don't even bother with the turrets. Seems the moment you have turrets, MORE raiders show up. What I do is build 2 "fronts" of sandbags, as shown in the screenshot below.

The first (bottom) sandbag is long enough for me to fit 3-4 people with M-16's and M-24's. I usually run them down the moment I finally see the message that they're starting their attack. So far, I've never had a wave of raiders even make it to the first set of sandbags, but if they do, I have the 2nd set I can fall back to.

[colonistPally]

Oob yeah the director AI probably actually likes the turrets, and see's it as a challenge. 

"Oooooh you're building turrets?!! We'll SEE about that!"

That's why it's important to use sandbags well and get the absolute best rifles you can, and play it like StarCraft, hehehe. Er. StarCraft 2..

Oh boy just wait until RimWorld gets some kind of bug race to throw at us. 

[TimMartland]

I dunno. Late-game, it kinda feels like a zergling rush! Also, has anyone tried setting up sandbags outside the base that are booby-trapped? The raiders would take cover and then...BOOM. Problem solved.

[colonistPally]

I dunno. Late-game, it kinda feels like a zergling rush! Also, has anyone tried setting up sandbags outside the base that are booby-trapped? The raiders would take cover and then...BOOM. Problem solved.

What I know would really drive people nuts is if we could get siege tanks, or mortars or something.

The turrets seem like they're super long range until the rifles start spawning later on with 2x the range. The 4-shot upgrade is really nice until 3-4 people are hitting the turret at once and they can take it slightly past damage, to explosion in a few seconds.

Using tons of strategically placed sand bags (using them almost like trenches) and making my junk piles into a huge huge defensive line much more practical. My longer rifles are cutting them down way before the majority of them get within turret range.

If we are going to go the "quantity instead of smarter" route this is fine, but if the director ai eventually is sending at us waves of 100, the turret math needs to scale to handle that strategy. In StarCraft, the terran have armor upgrades, range upgrades, all kinds of stuff so it scales properly. (not to mention bunkers).. but I know this isn't supposed to be a full blown mmorts but if we're going to live on a backwater Mar Sara hillbilly backwater borderlands riddick world we need to switch from like a sheriff riding around a hoverbike to full blown colonial militia troopers within a few months.

If we go the "smarter, not quantity" route then we need ways to fend off and counter attack their outposts.

Right now though I assume either our systems won't be able to handle the sheer number, or by pure statistics they'll get enough lucky shots off, or enough people spawning with long range rifles... and that doesn't really sound fun to me.

I'd rather end up with a sprawling colony where the raiders are smarter instead of huger deathballs. We all know what happens when you have a terran deathball rolling around. :/

[Untrustedlife]

He, I get that.

Pally I noticed something, your strategy lacks blasting charges.. you realize how easy to set those up it is? They are also extremely powerful and late game you kill all the raiders with a system of land mines, super easily. (I do that, I literally set up a minefield away from my colony and when raiders spawn *BOOM* no problem.)

(They will be removed in eh next version though) because of their opness, but it makes the game have no threat whatsoever once you have enough of them in this version. Exploit it.
(that is, unless you purposefully are ignoring them)

also raiders don't scale to them, (no extra raiders from having blasting charges).

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Also, I believe the game isn't meant for sprawling colonies.. its meant to have a small colony where you know every colonist individually..
(this has been stated many times, by tynan no less) and I agree with him.

[Fernbhoy]

As said before, blasting charges with small blasting rooms before the main colony entrance which is where  is setup my sandbags and hold my defenders ready to mop up whatevers left.

[Vastin]

Blasting charges in choke points are the obvious way - but I think those will be getting nerfed next build, so lets stick to non-blasty methods of defense.

For my part I build an inner firing line, and an outer wall/gate, about 20 squares apart - the outer wall is really just there to force my enemies into effective range of my firing line, so that they can't snipe my colonists from 36 squares away.

The firing line is an alternating structure of walls and sandbags like this:

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s                    s
s                    s
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I use two walls-two bags-two walls, but it might actually be better to alternate them singly, I'm not settled on that point yet.

This firing line is set forward of my main base structure by at least 4 tiles - it's going to get shot up and set on fire, so I want some buffer between it and anything important.

Soldiers are positioned behind the walls, which allows them to lean out and fire over the adjacent sandbags on either side, while providing the combined cover bonus of the wall AND the sandbag. Meanwhile my opponents are usually trying to shove their way through a relatively small breach or two in my outer wall. A couple of them will be getting cover bonuses from the wall and the rubble of the bits they destroyed, but only 2-4 of them will generally get this benefit - the rest will be running through to try and find a firing position, but of course the entire space between my firing line and the outer wall is devoid of cover (I cleared it) and well inside the effective range of M-16's and Uzis, so they're basically dog meat unless my colonists are severely outnumbered.

If its just a small group with advanced weapons that I have to deal with, and they all have the cover provided by the outer wall, well, that's not quite as ideal, but I'll still have a strong advantage because the volume of fire is going to be at least 4-1 in my favor if that's all the firing positions they have.

Guys with grenades are usually the biggest danger - if they manage to lob a frag or moltov onto my firing line, it'll disrupt between 2-4 firing positions, which is bad. Mostly however they are never going to make it to range. Their range is short, and they'll be the closest preferred targets. Incendiary rifles are not nearly as bad, as I can just un-recruit a soldier for a moment to put out the single wall/sandbag they ignited before being turned into a leaded swiss cheese.

Depending on the areas I have to cover, I may create more complex firing line shapes, but the same basic principle applies - just make sure you don't build anything close enough to your outer wall that the enemy can quickly dash through and use that cover against you.

[OobleckTheGreen]

I've been experimenting with a sort of "firing squad" setup (see pic):

Sandbags are arranged up top for my shooters, all armed with M-24's. Walls force attackers to slog through the only opening to my base, which of course is covered by my long range shooters. I put down debris to slow them down and place pairs of explosives in all the areas they tend to get bunched up.

This seems to work really well from a combat perspective. Unfortunately, I'm running into a situation where the attackers are starting to come too frequently, and my defenders are getting worn down from the constant fighting. There's always 1 or 2 on the edge of a mental break. Also, I'm nearly out of metal in this game, and haven't had a break with the industrial ships in a long time. So I may lose the ability to replace my bombs soon.

[Moonblink]

Great Ideas!! I love the sand bag and long range shooting method. To help with the mental break it's important to bury the dead. Your people hate seeing dead bodies laying around, yes even dead squirrels.

[OobleckTheGreen]

To help with the mental break it's important to bury the dead. Your people hate seeing dead bodies laying around, yes even dead squirrels.

I've been doing that. In that closed off room you can see in my screenshot? That's for bodies. I put charges in the center first, then load it up, then blow them all sky high to clean the room. Surprised my carpet isn't pink by now  Unfortunately, the problem seems to be the fact that there's not long enough breaks between the raids. The colonists seem to have more issue with the fact they saw someone die than they do with the bodies, and they're seeing someone die pretty damn often now 

[Coenmcj]

I took to using the Order No. 227 that the soviets employed, If one of my people goes crazy or abandons the sandbag line they are immediately shot, no faltering, no retreat!

Also the day that we can have "Badass" colonists that don't fear the bodies is also the day we will have to worry about colonists getting too happy, as they may just go insane and start killing people in a maddening glee

[Moonblink]

To help with the mental break it's important to bury the dead. Your people hate seeing dead bodies laying around, yes even dead squirrels.

I've been doing that. In that closed off room you can see in my screenshot? That's for bodies. I put charges in the center first, then load it up, then blow them all sky high to clean the room. Surprised my carpet isn't pink by now  Unfortunately, the problem seems to be the fact that there's not long enough breaks between the raids. The colonists seem to have more issue with the fact they saw someone die than they do with the bodies, and they're seeing someone die pretty damn often now 

LOL!

I took to using the Order No. 227 that the soviets employed, If one of my people goes crazy or abandons the sandbag line they are immediately shot, no faltering, no retreat!

Also the day that we can have "Badass" colonists that don't fear the bodies is also the day we will have to worry about colonists getting too happy, as they may just go insane and start killing people in a maddening glee

and LOL!