Are tribe raids unstoppable during solar flare ?

[BetaSpectre]

Make 1 wide hall.
Full with turrets on side.
$$$
Profit.

Just space then apart, then use doors possibly slag/sandbags and you'll be killing 20-40% of a raid per turret. I don't even bat an eye when I see 100-200 raiders/tribals. Instead I just prep my freezer and butcher tables. (Selling human meat and skin) I keep slaves to raise doctor and social skills. Sometimes they join but that's not important. If slavers still drop by then I sell slaves. I try to feed slaves human flesh when given the opportunity. Any prisoners that rage just increase my doctoring skills.

Most of my 14 colonists have 8-12 doctor, and 6-10 social skill. Another note like half of my colonists have malaria or plague hue hue. I just leave them in stasis.

When you don't have over whelming force this is the best strat.
When you do have overwhelming force. Just add more guns.

[Boboid]

Funny you should mention it but honestly unless I'm playing melee I prefer to be fighting tribals.

Nah, fighting tribals is hellish simply because there are so damn many of them that they will be on you before you get a second volley out of your turrets, due to the massive refire delays. And yeah, they drop kinda bad loot, although there's at least no shortage of meat.

Honestly there's no upper limit on the number of bodies a good killbox with frag grenades and miniguns can take. It depends a bit on positioning and weapon choice as well, I've lost a few battles to synchronized volleys, really need to stagger them to make sure nothing gets through.
Half of them are incapacitated by the first turret anyway.

As for the perks I'd much rather have a bunch of average colonists than one or two exceptional ones, -with the exception of a single expert Crafter who never gets involved in fights- all my colonists are more firepower to be used in the killbox.

[NoImageAvailable]

A base has empty spaces and even if some wood wall and bed gets knocked out, so what?

That those things are gone? That I didn't build those if I didn't need them, and that the solution isn't really useful if your base is getting destroyed anyway?

Needed != vital. What happens if a bedroom gets hit? You put up a sleeping spot and get some minor mood penalties until you rebuild it. If its a worktable you just can't do that type of work for a bit. If your colony collapses because somebody had to sleep on the ground or smelting wasn't done for one day then your problems run much deeper than sieges.

[Mikhail Reign]

Sniping for mortars as they are being built is the best option. Just position your shooter so there is something on the otherwise of the mortar and aim at them. All the 'misses' will hit the mortar. It's easier to hit something with a miss then it is to target it.

[Mathenaut]

As most of my base structures are made out of stone (I have most structures outside and just mine a little hole for sleeping/storage), the mortar damage isn't extensive. Repairs are easily done before the next round.

What I usually do with sieges is send a couple of snipers out to either pick them off or blow up the mortars.

Never really built mortars of my own again after figuring it was just easier to attack.

[Bob_Namg]

With a high tribal:colonist ratio without decent defenses, it's best to have all your men hide inside buildings, if you have any sharpshooters, have them run around behind the ranged tribals and injure as many as possible. It works especially if you DO have a good defense system, but a solar flare is affecting it, because there's a chance the turrets will kick back in and slaughter tribals that haven't killed themselves detonating said turrets.

Come to think of it, 3 unpowered turrets would probably be enough to kill most if not all the tribal melee units (they mindlessly attack the things anyway), so I don't see the difficulty unless your colony is a staggered village or something.

[Dave-In-Texas]

I wish we could have barbed wire and didn't have to resort to using sandbags purely as an obstacle.
Don't sandbags give cover to your targets ?

It is my impression that you only get that cover if you're standing behind a sandbag not on one (in other words on one side of them)

[lusername]

As most of my base structures are made out of stone (I have most structures outside and just mine a little hole for sleeping/storage), the mortar damage isn't extensive. Repairs are easily done before the next round.

Yeah, stone structures on the outside tend to survive, but their interior contents tend to get pulverized, particularly if you have colonists in there.

What I usually do with sieges is send a couple of snipers out to either pick them off or blow up the mortars.

Works until there are simply too many, or they have their own snipers. On larger maps, they can be an awfully long march away, though.