How Do We Deal with Sappers?

[Listy]

I just throw the entire kill-box idea out of the window to be honest. now i just draft all my combat capable troops nearly instantly as soon as a raid is coming and move out since fighting around my base is now too risky. But even with far less people it can be quiet do-able even with lesser weapons, skill or armor. The main thing you need to do though is trying to pick off easy targets as soon as possible.

I've always done the majority of the fighting with my colonists. However its the age old issue of having to out gun the attackers somewhere.
I used to use a small number of turrets just so I didn't need to respond to mad animal (single) events.

In my A10 game I decided to try out a new approach, in preparation for A11 and sappers.
My entire base is surrounded by this:
http://i.imgur.com/gtoBsHz.jpg

The outer walls and the sandbags are new additions after about 8 scythers decided to snipe the hell out of me.
Each turret can cover both of its neighbours. However the sheer number of turrets needed means the power consumption is horrifically high. Plus  its hard to concentrate firepower. In the latest raids I've lost the entire side or more of the bases turrets. The only thing keeping me from getting overwhelmed was the turret explosions. And on the last tribal raid I suffered even that didn't stop them from reaching my lines though sheer weight of numbers.

So Some new thinking is needed I fear.

[PotatoOnStick]

I just throw the entire kill-box idea out of the window to be honest. now i just draft all my combat capable troops nearly instantly as soon as a raid is coming and move out since fighting around my base is now too risky. But even with far less people it can be quiet do-able even with lesser weapons, skill or armor. The main thing you need to do though is trying to pick off easy targets as soon as possible.

I've always done the majority of the fighting with my colonists. However its the age old issue of having to out gun the attackers somewhere.
I used to use a small number of turrets just so I didn't need to respond to mad animal (single) events.

So Some new thinking is needed I fear.

I believe i never said that you should try to outgun the enemies? Then again i tend to forget. I just tend to pick them off one by one or ambush them so that they do not have any cover. To even be able to do this you will need to prepare some stuff across the entire map but you can with this tactic just ensure survival for a long while hoping you pick the right ones out.

[MarcTheMerc]

Mechnoids have changed they can mine recently had them tunnel into a bedroom.

[jhennice18]

sappers are extremely dangerously annoying especially when there is a toxic fallout! i love playing in the wintery setup.. prepping for the long winter then bam! here's a raid party with a few sappers! now i like putting a double to tripple wall defense with a double turret for cover!

[Listy]

sappers are extremely dangerously annoying especially when there is a toxic fallout! i love playing in the wintery setup.. prepping for the long winter then bam! here's a raid party with a few sappers! now i like putting a double to tripple wall defense with a double turret for cover!

I'm thinking the same an outer wall to speed bump the Sappers down and concealed positions for Trigger happy colonists with grenades around the inside perimeter. Then the base proper.

I might even try the incendiary wall cavity idea as well on the outer wall.

[JimmyAgnt007]

we need moats filled with lava.

[Lady Wolf]

Making some dumping zones to fill full of rock debris about 4-10 blocks wide/thick makes a nice kill zone against melee men, and rining your base with such a wall also slows up sappers a short bit, giving a little extra time to get in position to counter them.

[CheckSix]

I stumbled on an idea when I checked the available steam geysers on the map. One was reasonably close to home, but it needed a lot of cable to reach my base. It might have been vulnerable there all alone, but it only supplied EXTRA power. I decided to tunnel through the mountain myself, and run a cable there. When I was initially attacked, a sniper set up outside turret range (as they do) to slowly pick it off. I sent MY sniper through the mountain to approach him from behind and kill him. Worked a treat. This also worked when I had my first sapper attack. As the melee soldiers continued slightly ahead of the tunnelling sapper trying to get through two tiles, I approached him from behind as well as sending some melee troops in to where he was attempting entry. The turrets meanwhile made short work of his fellow raiders, and by the time the sapper broke through and began melee with my team in the base, I also had a sniper behind him picking him off. I did suffer some nasty casualties, but drove them off.

[slamo]

I'm still experimenting with counter-sapper strategies.

1. Counter raid. Send out some sharpshooters with sniper rifles and target the SAPPER. As fas as I have seen only 1-2 raiders will be sappers. The sappers are the ones with the frag grenades or molotov cocktails. I haven't seen any other raiders digging; if you kill the sapper it might turn into a regular raid.

2. Quick defenses. When I know where they will be sapping I can often throw up 2-3 quick sentry guns or IEDs right where they will break through and/or in the nearby halls. The sapper is usually the first raider into the breach... and boom.

3. Distract. Send out hit and run raids while they are sapping; this will cause them to stop sapping to defend. Pull back to base. When they return to sapping, hit and run again. Wait for timer to run out.

4. Prepare traps. I'm not entirely sure about this one yet. Sappers seem to go for the shortest path into your base. I've started preparing 1-tile-wide tunnels that are blocked at the end by walls. I pre-load these tunnels with rockfalls and IEDs. My thought is that the sappers will aim for one of these spurs as a short path in and get chewed up by the traps. Want to add sentry guns too? Put the whole spur on a power switch so it doesn't drain power.

[lusername]

My experimental concepts are as follows:
1. Cladding and baffles: plate the entire mountainside with a stone wall so they can't mine anything, and then erect a layer of porous baffles around it: If they try to bomb the wall with their grenades, the baffles will disrupt any line of fire and force them to close to point blank, where they will blow themselves up.
2. Decoy structures: Can sappers be completely confused as to what is even a substantive part of your base, causing them to mine into irrelevant areas which you can then fill with traps?
3. Give into madness, embrace Jattenalle as savior: Use only psychically deaf colonists, leave an evil ship unmolested and have everyone on the map go mad. Raiders cease to be an issue and defenses are only needed to repel mechs and wolves.