How to deal with late game centipedes invasion?

[BlackHunter]

So, I ve built a rich colony on 1.0 , Randy Random, Mercyless, 15 people.
Was a hard way tho, 6 centipedes almost wiped out everything at mid game. After this, I ve got like 6 nice quallity miniguns wich helps me to kill centipeds of mixed groups of mechs. For now, typical threats are like 150 insects with 50 hives (almost no troubles), hundret of pirats (no troubles at all), massive rush of tribe people or huge manhunter animals (no troubles too), 33 scythers was my previous raid, they did almost no damage.
But, right after this scythers, 25 centipedes came. My nightmare returns. They ve broke through my pathetic killbox-alike defence wich works fine all the time. After a long fight 1/4 of my people were downed, 1/4 hurt, 1/4 dead, 1/4 even had no corpses to revive cause of inferno cannon burn. It was one of the first ship launch up waves so I have no time to recover.
The quesion is, wich way shoud I use to prevent this in my new colony? I used dev mod to reconstruct this fight. Tried differend things. Autocannons seems expensive and fragile against their firepower, miniguns does their job but centipedes are able to just destroy colonist's cover or simply set them on fire before getting enough damage. Melee rushing 25 centipeds just sounds insane. Using EMP grenades may help a bit, but they got adapted too fast. EMP grenades with frag grenades shoud probably work, but its pretty hard, and needs alot of grenaders (like 9 I quess). Rocket launchers doesnt seems effective against them, they will just destroy walls and stuff around them. Using sniper rifles is a classic way to deal with them, but it ll take really long time to kill the whole group, also, its just boring. Using mortars seems like a steel waste, also they spawned pretty close to my base.
Shoud I try something else? Possibly melee clubs rush isnt a bad idea? What about using masterwork and legendary charge lances? They seems to have the best armor penetration, could lances deal more damage to centipede than minigun?
For now I m just thinking that its impossible to deal with such tanks without world quest weapons, unless u are ready to use sniper rifles and play hit-n-run thing for ingame day.

https://imgur.com/ZY2i6Z1

I ve just added a link of the screenshot then the mess just started
Colonists not on the screen fighting another group of centipedes using sniper rifles.
This other group finally decided not to follow my snipers and just came into my base too
My defence far from perfect but I dont think that even something much better could stop them
Well, expect something like a long corridor filled by mines

[Shurp]

Would having multiple layers of cover for your miniguns help?  Build a wall, then build another wall several tiles back (far enough that inferno cannon shots which get through the gaps explode a safe distance behind pawns instead of cooking them), then a wall behind that too.  As the heavy blast cannons take down walls have your pawns scoot back behind the next layer.

It'll still take a while but no where near as long as sniper kiting.

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Hmmm, did some playtesting, and no, it doesn't work.  The biggest problem is that pawns don't comprehend stop-drop-and-roll. They run around in circles while on fire, and the zone behind the wall is filled with fire, so when they try to retreat from one wall to the next they catch fire and roast.

Let me see if plasteel holds up longer than marble to heavy blast cannon fire...

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Plasteel walls definitely work better... but centipede mobs really are brutal.  Fire weapons to force your pawns to run out into the open and die are very effective, and there's no defense I know of. 

[Ser Kitteh]

I recommend putting some firefoam poppers at your bunker, this would at the very least prevent fire from spreading any further.

But other than that, I too am unsure how you would take on centipedes. There's only so much firepower you can throw at them.

[BlackHunter]

I never knew that firefoam works this way. I have to use it in the future, thanks!
Still as you said, I dont see any ways to deal enought damage to the huge groups of centipedes.

[5thHorseman]

I think the only real solution (other than not coupling a rich colony with Randy Merciless) is to kite them so they spread out a bit so you can handle them one or two at a time. It's a bit dangerous but not as dangerous as letting 8 centipedes breach your base.

[BlackHunter]

Great idea, this could work.
I did something like this on my colony but they ve lost contact with my snipers and went back to my colony.

Also I have to admit that there is far more than 8 centipedes on the screen, some of them were merged in one tile.

[Akins]

Great idea, this could work.
I found the best protein powders here and did something like this on my colony but they ve lost contact with my snipers and went back to my colony.

Also I have to admit that there is far more than 8 centipedes on the screen, some of them were merged in one tile.

Can you do something to sort of "nip it in the bud?" Do something so they can't develop the late game centipedes invasion?

[BlackHunter]

Well I could do something wierd like mentioned at this post
https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=45664.0
to make wealth lower and raids easier

But no. I dont want to play the game this way.

[mebe]

As someone else said, firefoam poppers are the rock to inferno cannons scissors.

That being said if you are playing on that difficulty level with that many pawns you probably need an extreme killbox - I have created ones with around 100 plasteel traps in a corridor before they even hit the gun section (harder now with less plasteel from disassembling)

[Shurp]

Centipedes are easier to killbox than most opponents.  So you may want to just spam turrets inside your killbox.  Turrets keep shooting even when they catch fire, unlike your pawns, and they draw fire from your pawns.

Also, I think you'll be better off with ARs and LMGs.  Miniguns have an atrocious hit rate.  Whereas you practically can't miss a centipede with a normal (non-area) rifle.  Most of your minigun fire is spraying around the centipede instead of into it.

[BlackHunter]

Minigun deal the best dps to huge targets even if half shots missed anyway. Plasteel mini turrets are quite useful as a decoy but they cant take centipedes fire long enougt. Autocannon turrets has a big blast radius and damage, they are expensive, they are unable to use covers properly (actually its a bug, for some reason they accept bottom or left placed covers only), takes a lot of space, easy to hit, also, they cant shoot long enought. You could notice 4 autocannons on my screen. All of them just ran out of ammo in the middle of the fight (were full before).

If 25 centipedes were my usual type of raid I had to build ultimate huge killbox with dozen of slug turrets, mines, ect, but its really expensive stuff. Still I dont think that even this ll be good enougt to stop them. Also I dont want to change my base design adding a one direction killbox cause of the AI behavior who desided do go inside instead of doing something smart is wierd.

[Shurp]

You miss a lot more than half your shots with a minigun.  In fact, you automiss with something like 90% of them.  Read the thread on how forced miss radius.  Miniguns are great if there's a crowd for the missed bullets to plow into.  Maybe with 22 centipedes there are enough bystanders to take some of the bullets, but normally, minigun isn't the way to go against them.

Yeah, turrets will work well against a few centipedes but a mob like what you're facing will take them down fast.  I guess that won't be cost effective.

[zizard]

Minigun don't have fmr since b19. Another change supposedly is that half of missed shots disappear or something, which disproportionately affects the mini gun. Should compare legendary mini with lege lance.

Anyway only fun way to deal with centipedes is to hit them before they are born: right in the wealth. Some people say wealth control is tedious. I say it's by far the lesser of two tediums compared to killing massed cents.

Another time machine based counter is to make sure you are at war with as many factions as possible. According to dev mode, less factions at war means more mechs. So the whole relation system is basically a noob trap.

[Ser Kitteh]

I've had two miniguns on a shelf at my bunker for a while, and gave them to my better shooters. I feel miniguns miss WAY too much for all the firepower they pour out. They do more damage to my walls than the enemy. Really, it might be better to churn out charge rifles and ARs. At least they have a bigger tendency to hit.

And yes, my killbox pretty much puts them into a long corridor. Still can't hit the broadside of a barn.

[BlackHunter]

According rimworld wiki pure minigun DPS is 36.76 then the charge rifle's pure dps is just 13.24 and the AR dms is much worse - 10.88. Exellent-Legendary Minigun's medium accuracy is near 25% , wich means that used against x2 body size creature like centipede it ll get x2 accuracy bonus, so, it ll miss like half of its shots. 36/2 is 18, it ll deal more damage than any same quallity rifle or AR even if they never miss.