How Do We Deal with Sappers?

[SupremeSoviet]

So the new alpha is here and I love the changes.  I haven't had a chance to play yet but I realize that the addition of Sappers has dramatically changed the game.  Our old strategies of kill zones and choke points has basically been shot in the face with the latest patch. 

A key question has come to my mind.  How far are sappers willing to dig or destroy to get into the base?  I ask because I usually like to build my bases into mountains with a natural choke point, as the sole entrance, with a large outer field and establish my defenses at the chokepoint. I know they will try to dig through the sides of the choke point to get to me.  The real question is, will they try to dig through half a mountain to get to me?  Cause that would seem a little op to me.  There has to be a limit... right?

Anyone found any good ways to deal with sappers?  Let the Discussion begin.

[TLHeart]

sappers don't start appearing until after a few raids. They will attempt the shortest least resistance path to your base... they do not eliminate the kill box. how to deal with them, kill them, either out in the field, or just as they enter the base... you will see them coming. You have traps of your own you can set. before they breach.

[Kraehe]

Just made your whole base a deathtrap. 1-2 turrets on vital spots and some cover for your guys in your base and all is fine.

Oh and lay some traps random on your map and on points you think they can be usefull. They dont do much damage but are nice to have (made them with the material you have the most from, I made mine mostly out from wood.

[jega]

Yes, if there is no easier access into your base that avoids turrets, yes they will mine though 20 tiles of rock. They are on a self timer though before they give up and leave like other raiders so they wont stay forever.

[Euzio]

I've yet to deal with sappers (or try A11 for that matter). But i've theorized a possible means. It can apply to both open bases and mountain bases.

Basically what I have planned is that if its an open base (not dug into a mountain), it will be a base surrounded by 2 layers of walls. The gap between the walls is where I will put defensive turrets strategically to cover all sides. It will cost quite a fair bit of resources though since the walls will be pretty huge depending on your base size.

The second option would be when building mountain bases. By the same concept, except I will tunnel out a corridor gap within the mountain and put some defences there.

[Listy]

I've yet to deal with sappers (or try A11 for that matter). But i've theorized a possible means. It can apply to both open bases and mountain bases.

Basically what I have planned is that if its an open base (not dug into a mountain), it will be a base surrounded by 2 layers of walls. The gap between the walls is where I will put defensive turrets strategically to cover all sides. It will cost quite a fair bit of resources though since the walls will be pretty huge depending on your base size.

The second option would be when building mountain bases. By the same concept, except I will tunnel out a corridor gap within the mountain and put some defences there.

The Issue here is I tried a 360 defence with turrets in the last build. you'll need massive amounts of power, and even then you'll not have lots of turrets in an area, and its not sufficient to shut down an attack force after a certain date/richness combo. The only thing keeping me alive and even then it was close was the enemies taste for hugging exploding turrets. Behaviour that has been removed.

[Lady Wolf]

I like the dual wall layer approach, make the walls out of stone and fill the gap with some incendiary IED's, wood floors/beds and maybe a few gun turrets and any baddies attempting to breach will die in a messy inferno in short order. 

[Listy]

I like the dual wall layer approach, make the walls out of stone and fill the gap with some incendiary IED's, wood floors/beds and maybe a few gun turrets and any baddies attempting to breach will die in a messy inferno in short order. 

Its possible, but as the other thread (which went badly off track) shows it has its problems. Plus there's the mining speed. How quickly do Sappers actually tunnel through walls?

[Euzio]

The Issue here is I tried a 360 defence with turrets in the last build. you'll need massive amounts of power, and even then you'll not have lots of turrets in an area, and its not sufficient to shut down an attack force after a certain date/richness combo. The only thing keeping me alive and even then it was close was the enemies taste for hugging exploding turrets. Behaviour that has been removed.

I'm assuming the sappers actually tunnel through and that the raiders with them can also use that dug tunnel to access your base. The idea I have involves turrets that overlap each other within their range of fire. This thereby allows the turrets to essentially shoot from all sides at incoming raiders. In the past, I could just let the turrets do all the work with killboxes but with A11, I'm also factoring in that my colonists will have to play a very active roll in moving to locations in which raiders might breach. Therefore in addition to the turrets, there should be sandbag cover for colonists at strategic points.

I do play with mods though and one of the mods I use has upgraded turrets in which one of the turrets I can build is a sniper turret. Therefore it allows a single sniper turret to cover a huge range and I would supplement it with normal turrets at strategic points. The idea I theorized can likely handle with no mods and using regular turrets, but I would definitely agree that it would take a fair amount of power compared to the past. A solution would be to use switches to turn on certain sections of turrets only depending on the point of attack the raiders are coming from. Like if they are coming from the North, have the switch controlling only the Northern section of turrets.

[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.

[Numar]

I didn't play A11 yet, but it made me think rocks are too easy to mine through. Nothing against making the game more complex or difficult, but cutting through massive rocks/mountains without visible tools seems kinda op. For sappers as well as for colonists. It wouldn't be a bad call to think about making mining harder with e.g. a pickaxe is needed for the job or similiar.

[TAzevedo]

Hello. I started playing A11 and have not suffered the sappers yet and I'm trying to understand how they work so that I can prepare ahead.
I've read that they take the path of least resistance to your base, but what exactly do they consider your base? Where do they want to reach? What is their target? If i have 2 bases, which one do they choose to attack? I think this applies to all raiders, not only sappers.

Best regards,
Tiago

[SupremeSoviet]

It wouldn't be a bad call to think about making mining harder with e.g. a pickaxe is needed for the job or similiar.

This.  I like this.  Tbh I like the idea of Sappers it does change things a bit, but there need to be limitations.  Tools are good for the future but there also needs to be a limiting factor for sappers digging.  I would say a 5 block maximum digging would be acceptable.  For sappers to be able to dig through a mountain to get to me is WAY too OP.

[TLHeart]

It wouldn't be a bad call to think about making mining harder with e.g. a pickaxe is needed for the job or similiar.

This.  I like this.  Tbh I like the idea of Sappers it does change things a bit, but there need to be limitations.  Tools are good for the future but there also needs to be a limiting factor for sappers digging.  I would say a 5 block maximum digging would be acceptable.  For sappers to be able to dig through a mountain to get to me is WAY too OP.

but once they have spent all that time digging, they are tired and hungry, and fight less efficiently. Not over powered.

[Devon_v]

They're really not a big deal unless you are completely relying on an auto-turret killbox. You just can't hollow out a mountain and put 30 turrets at the only door and ignore combat for the rest of the game anymore. I always arm my colonists, and while I would prefer to let the turrets do the fighting, I have to go out and make preemptive strikes on sieges anyway, and sapper raids are pretty similar.

Your terrain and how you build has a major effect on sappers.  So long as the walls are thick enough you can just go outside and fight them in their tunnel as they dig. Explosives, especially incendiaries, are devastatingly effective in such close quarters. You can also design your base with internal choke points and/or turrets. Just leave them switched off if there are no sappers around.

The point of sappers is to make mountain bases more interesting, and non-mountain bases more viable, by forcing you to do more playing and less watching armies of morons run to their deaths.

Also sappers are just a raid type. Normal raiders are still lemmings, and the mechanoids haven't changed.