How do you prevent colonists from being eaten by random predators?

[Modo44]

You could tame some big animal (like bears) and have one assigned to follow each colonist around, combine that with a decent weapon and it is a fair chance that they will survive.

This would be great if you could make a tamed animal follow a pawn whenever they leave the home area. At the moment, only certain actions, like hunting, make tamed animals follow. This is a bad design decision.

[Wintersdark]

I set stockpiles in distant areas of the map for bodies, then just dump enemy corpses there.  Most predators will happily snack on the corpses, and if they never get hungry they never stalk my pawns.  Also reduces the amount of useful animals predators kill, saving them for me to hunt/tame/whatever.   

Kills multiple birds with one stone.

[giltirn]

My A17 jungle map is teeming with animals and yet every so often a panther tries to take a bite of my colonists. Recently I've taken to leading out hunting parties every few days to wipe out all the panthers, but the bastards seem to keep coming. On the flip side I do have a huge stockpile of meat (way more than I'm bringing in from my farms) and loads of panther pelts.

[Nainara]

Enclosing your colony inside a curtain wall helps protect your pawns and livestock from predators. It also helps control the avenues of access for raids, takes the bite out of manhunter packs, and keeps forest fires away once you upgrade to stone.

[faltonico]

Hunting Alert will not prevent it from happening, but it will give them more chances of surviving.

[O Negative]

This is an example of one of my older A16 colonies. About 5 years in, and self-sustaining. No turrets necessary, playing on Cass Rough. You'll notice a lot of wood structures, mostly because I like the aesthetic of it To the north, you'll see the fortress getting an expansion, as more colonists are starting to join. Outer wall acts as a shield against wildfires and predators. The triple door entrance/gateway into the fortress made animal events pretty much null. Hallways along the outer wall offered a safe way for me to flank raiders, and that's including sappers. Multiple entrances and exits to most buildings, coupled with narrow alley ways, meant I was able to flank any hostile animals or raiders that managed to slip inside somehow. On Topic: I didn't suffer a single colonist death due to natural predators in this game. And I think I owe it all to the layout of the base.

[makkenhoff]

The easiest strategy is to just throw up a perimeter wall, as others have said. It won't help against pirates/tribals, so make sure you repair the walls after assaults in high priority.

You can hunt them for food, but more predators move in, and generally put your pawns at risk, especially if you are using lesser weapons for hunting. Dead body stockpile placement does appear to help attract predators to that area.

But, the easiest way? Play in extreme biomes that kill wildlife - they leave on their own.

[AngleWyrm]

Have you tried ritual sacrifice? It's a time-tested tradition, and eliminating virgins when they ripen is a great way to resolve all those worrisome dress-code problems. Maybe if there's no sexy in sight those sinful thoughts will just up and vanish -- monkey see, monkey do, right? How that relates to survival of the species is another topic.

[vampiresoap]

Oh I also found that letting your pawns sleep in the day and going out during the night also helps because predators sleep at night

[O Negative]

Oh I also found that letting your pawns sleep in the day and going out during the night also helps because predators sleep at night

Hmmm, indeed

The simple fact that there are no nocturnal animals makes a night-time colony almost completely safe.

[mumblemumble]

What? that is weird : racoons for instance should be nocturnal, unless infected with rabies...

[dburgdorf]

Yet another option.... You can prevent colonists from getting eaten by *random* predators by making sure they get eaten by the *specific* predators you choose. Having a pawn walk up and slap a particular timber wolf across the snout, for example, will usually get the animal's attention, and make sure that the non-random, specially chosen wolf gets the benefit of your pawn's nutritional value.

[Bozobub]

Just tame the animal 1st, then butcher it if not actually wanted.  Problem *immediately* solved.  It turns out, taming is lower-risk by far.  that's how I start all of my artist colony/bear and dog breeding farms...

[vampiresoap]

Yet another option.... You can prevent colonists from getting eaten by *random* predators by making sure they get eaten by the *specific* predators you choose. Having a pawn walk up and slap a particular timber wolf across the snout, for example, will usually get the animal's attention, and make sure that the non-random, specially chosen wolf gets the benefit of your pawn's nutritional value.

What the hell, man? lol

[Renegrade]

Yet another option.... You can prevent colonists from getting eaten by *random* predators by making sure they get eaten by the *specific* predators you choose.

What the hell, man? lol

Well you DID ask about solutions for "colonists ... being eaten by RANDOM predators".   Feeding your colonists to specific predators would definitely solve the 'random' aspect of that

I'm with the hunting-party people.  It works well enough.  I've done that perimeter wall thing that was suggested above too, and it's highly effective, although resource intensive and seems to hit the framerate somewhat when pathing is going on...