Messages

I have several plans to make some raiders better at handling choking/funneling strategies. The methods that some players have been using did not come up in testing before this month. Which is fine - that's why it's important to get feedback from real players!

Yes, that's a problem I've seen and that quite bothered me: if you created a tower-defense-like path to your colony, the raiders will follow that path no matter what.
They should be able to (for instance) decide if they see an easy access, and if not, they take down the closest wall.
Then once they've breached that wall, they assess the situation: if there is a colonist/turret in sight, go for it, else look for a visible access, or go for a wall again.
Now if/when raiders' objectives are implemented (like capture a specific colonist), they'll have to prioritize that as well.

Would be nice if they could simply get to cover and shoot when a hostile is in range, perhaps having this behavior as a "job" like everything else, to be turned on and off, independent of drafting.

I agree they should go get some cover (though... where would that be ? far out of range ? a specific spot we'd have to define ?), but that should be it.
They shouldn't respond to being attacked, as long as we still have the drafting mechanic.

Seconded. DF, BTW has just this.