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Well, you know, two sides to every story 

Tropico with spaceships? Brilliant! Rimworld sounds even more enticing now...

I like to think that the seemingly endless hordes of raiders that come at you time and time again, in ever increasing numbers, is all a chain reaction caused by the actions of your opportunistic, exploitative desperate, frightened survivors.

You see, one fine day, Sally Mendez, 24 year old deep space miner, is out for a walk in the country to relax, minding her own business. However, your spacewreck survivors spot her wandering aimlessly near the outskirts of their new settlement. Recognizing the opportunity to gain more hands to work Worried for the safety of another human in this inhospitable environment, your settlers immediately arrest Mendez and drag her to their newly constructed jailhouse. You know, for her protection. After learning of her considerable skill in mining, you make every effort to convert her to your cause.

Meanwhile, Sally's family and friends are worried- after all, she has disappeared into the wilderness. After a few days, a party goes in search of her. Knowing the dangers out there- herds of psychotic muffalo, rabid squirrels, slave traders, and so on, they set out with a few guns in the direction poor Sally was last seen alive.

After a while, the search party spots a heretofore unknown settlement. Perhaps Sally ended up there? They move closer to inspect, when suddenly automated gun turret is raining fire down on them! After a brief exchange, some of the search party are dead, some are wounded, and those still able to run back home to report their losses and tell of the extremely hostile new neighbors.

Soon, another party is established, this time to 1) find Sally Mendez, 2) rescue the injured members of the first search party, 3) avenge those that were killed, and 4) eliminate this new threat. Before you know it, your new colony is at war with the entire region. And Mendez, deep space miner, has succumbed to Stockholm syndrome has joined your hardy gang of survivors.

[Rattlesnakes and other vermin]

Rattlesnakes and other vermin with any combination of the following fairly simple behaviors:
-create unhappiness de-buff when observed by colonists (like observing corpses, but not as traumatizing)
-quickly reproducing; at the start of each day, generate a random number from 0 to 2, if <1, nothing happens, if >= 1, spawn more vermin (thinking something like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOwinLWrEIw)
-attack anything that comes too close

A variety of melee weapons such as clubs, metal pipes, spears that have a longer reach, etc. Could be fun.
Smoke grenades- non-lethal, but blocks line of sight. You probably wouldn't have to adjust raiders' behavior much if at all, they can walk through the smoke cloud or around it to regain LoS
Tear gas- also non-lethal, but exposure to enough of it could be incapacitating, and/or slow units down. And of course this paves the way for mustard gas, nerve gas, clouds of flatulence, who knows?

As for things previously mentioned, an abandoned building somewhere on the map sounds great, preferably with skeletons inside, also the possibility of an abandoned cave. Hopefully at some point they'd have prehistoric style cave paintings on the walls, depicting a muffalo hunt. Archaeology anyone? 
Hedges, ditches, and other "wall" types would be great.
I am also all for fire extinguishers as it gives something useful for your non-violent units to equip.