How to effectively stock up equipment to keep the edge over raiders?

[Shabazza]

How do you usually outfit your colonists to be prepared for raids that become harsher and harsher?
Is it sufficient for you to just use the stuff of those dead raiders to be prepared for harder fights,
or do you craft higher quality weapons yourself to not fall short in adequate equipment at some point?

I ask, because I actually never made it to later stages in the game where mechanoids and other pesky enemies begin to show up,
because I tend to challenge me with a tough environment rather than a tough storyteller.

But I'm really curious how you prepare properly for defending against late-game raids when you go the 'way of the warrior'.
What are the most promising ways to always be a step ahead of the raiders?
How do you distribute meele and ranged guys?

[jaeden25]

A lot of it is down to how well you can control the battle rather than the equipment you have.  You want things to hide behind and run to everywhere, so when yor colonists are getting shot at you can pull them back while the rest of your colonists keep shooting.

[omittimo]

I usually create different teams. My equipment mostly relies on what i get from raids, but the later the game, the more equipment i produce by my own.
Sniper team: colonists with highest accuracy - sniper + full power armor + bionic eyes
Infantry: mostly charge rifle (sometimes assaults) + kevlars, but i like to throw in some LMGs + power armor
Melee: shields + plasteel gladius + kevlar/power armor + bionic legs against mechs
Rescue team: animals (mostly dogs)

Depending on the fight i use my teams for different tasks:
Siege - sniper team focussing on enemy snipers and mortars, backing up to turret/infantry line
Sappers - sniper + infantry if fast enough - Melee inside the base / around possible corners
Raids - turrets (always plasteel in frontline) + melee around corners or close to endangered turrets + infantry + snipers in the back + countersniping
Mechs - really active play with a lot of space / pause; melee running around to distract (depending on the number of mechs) + sniper/infantry + slowly backing up to base / turrets

The best ways to always be a step ahead of the raiders IMHO
- Build one turret more as you would need
- Use your positioning as smart as possible
- Get at least 2 Snipers as fast as possible
- Always try to upgrade your teams with better armor, bionics or weapons
- Get a good doctor and a clean hospital
- don't underestimate the power of rescue dogs (especially in long fights against mech hordes)

[Agent00Soul]

Wouldn't have thought power armour on everyone. The work penalties must be horrible..

But then I only play with combat realism, the snipers simply don't get shot at.

[sadpickle]

Wouldn't have thought power armour on everyone. The work penalties must be horrible..

That's what equipment racks are for. If you feel like micromanaging, you can make armor last a lot longer by keeping it in an armory and equipping when necessary.

[Barley]

I find myself with a surplus of charge rifles from raiders, so I generally use them for my line infantry.

I keep 1 or 2 sniper rifles for hitting mortar bases and crashed ship AIs.
I keep all the personal shields and frag grenades I can acquire for Mechanoid Raids. Frag grenades are lethal against Mechs so long as the shield infantry can distract the Mechaniod's fire. We're talking 1 or 2 volleys good.
Rocket Launchers are grenades on steroids, but also work great as shieldbreakers.

[omittimo]

Wouldn't have thought power armour on everyone. The work penalties must be horrible..

There is nothing more terrible, than loosing your best sniper and buddy to the first snipershot of a battle.
R.I.Plasteel sarcophagus Roland...

[Aarkreinsil]

Try to always have one really REALLY good craftsman in your colony, and research machining quickly.
Devilstrand clothing is another thing that you can use if you're really paranoid about your people getting shot at.
Also try setting up mazes of steel deadfall traps, they're extremely effective, even against mechanoids.


All in all, you should try to get at least one sniper ASAP, crafting one if you can't find one, so you can decimate sieges and mechanite ships from a safe distance. It sucks when all you have are pistols and shotguns, and the enemy has snipers in their siege camp.
Then you might want to stock up on assault/charge rifles for encounters of all sorts. Their fast warmup and burst fire also makes them great training weapons for your low-skilled shooters.
I usually keep all sniper/assault/charge rifles that I find, maybe some grenades, too. Everything else will be sold or smelted down for raw materials.

When it comes to the later stages, I actually favor making armour over weapons, because you usually only find armour pieces with really low durability. With weapons, the damage is always the same, and only the accuracy gets hampered (somewhat) by low durability. Usually it's mostly the shooter who hampers the hit chance anyway.
With armour, the actual armour value goes down, and people will get negative moodlets for wearing tattered helmets and vests.
Even if your blacksmith is a total buffoon and he makes a shoddy/poor armour vest, it will always be at 100% durability and usually outclass anything that you can find in the field. And while limbs are replacable, heads and torsos are not. Also, since most enemies don't attack downed opponents, you'll want as much armor as possible so your pawns get downed from pain (having a lot of small, harmless wounds), not from blood loss or losing a limb.



It's pretty situational, though. If you live inside a mountain and have to expect a bug hive to pop up in your bedroom, get assault rifles for everyone ASAP. If you are scared of sieges or sappers, get at least one sniper. Then focus on making armour and devilstrand clothing.

[Shabazza]

All in all, you should try to get at least one sniper ASAP, crafting one if you can't find one, so you can decimate sieges and mechanite ships from a safe distance. It sucks when all you have are pistols and shotguns, and the enemy has snipers in their siege camp.

Exactly that happend to me in my current colony.
I was attacked by two scythers.
My guys only had one survival rifle and three knifes at that point and only non to mediocre body armor.
They managed to kill one scyther, but the other one incapacitated the other colonists.
Then he sniped his way through my outer defenses slowly but surely.
Luckily, at one point he had to move through some structures to get to the next batch of turrets.
So he got in range of the turrets and was killed.
My pacifist back in the base tried to rescue and treat all colonists (with a doctor level of 1), but one colonist died during his treatment and the two survivors
needed some of my stocked limbs, to get back into business.
This bad expierience was actually the reason for asking this question here... 

[Astasia]

One of the first things I do is create a kill room. The AI usually doesn't attack walls if there is a door it can get to, so I create a triangle where the pointy end is a 1 wide walkway the enemy comes in from, and the other end is a bunch of pillars and sandbags where I can line a bunch of my guys up behind cover, with the door to my base behind them. You can adjust the length and size of the triangle to control what kind of range is allowed inside (take advantage away from snipers for example if you don't have any) or how many of your colonists you can line up.

Even earlier, like day one, a wood wall with a door. When you get a raid, open the door and set it to stay open, then have your guys just inside behind sandbags, with your melee guys against the wall ready to jump on them.

Mechanoids don't send raids until after 45 days, by then you should have fairly well armed colonists and a good defensive structure to fight them in. It sounds like you ran into one of the possible issues of playing on an "easier" difficulty, where you didn't get many raids in those first 45 days and had the bad luck of suddenly getting some mechs. You pretty much rely entirely on raids to bring you gear, so the more raids you get and the bigger they are, the better off you are to handle future raids. The more raids you get, the easier the game is.

[Boston]

One of the first things I do is create a kill room. The AI usually doesn't attack walls if there is a door it can get to, so I create a triangle where the pointy end is a 1 wide walkway the enemy comes in from, and the other end is a bunch of pillars and sandbags where I can line a bunch of my guys up behind cover, with the door to my base behind them. You can adjust the length and size of the triangle to control what kind of range is allowed inside (take advantage away from snipers for example if you don't have any) or how many of your colonists you can line up.

Even earlier, like day one, a wood wall with a door. When you get a raid, open the door and set it to stay open, then have your guys just inside behind sandbags, with your melee guys against the wall ready to jump on them.

Mechanoids don't send raids until after 45 days, by then you should have fairly well armed colonists and a good defensive structure to fight them in. It sounds like you ran into one of the possible issues of playing on an "easier" difficulty, where you didn't get many raids in those first 45 days and had the bad luck of suddenly getting some mechs. You pretty much rely entirely on raids to bring you gear, so the more raids you get and the bigger they are, the better off you are to handle future raids. The more raids you get, the easier the game is.

Ahhh, good old killboxes....

[Mathenaut]

I start with the best raid equipment - unless I start with a really good crafter. Otherwise, I craft high quality bows (will out perform low quality rifles easily). Quality penalties stack over distance and raider weapons are usually poor quality. Most raids for me just add to the junk stockpile for pocket change when a trader comes by. Can get lucky occasionally though.

When I get a good stockpile of components, I upgrade to assault rifles and sniper rifles. Colonists who can shoot, but have bad skill, get PDWs.

Mechanoids require accurate range weapons of some sort, otherwise you are SOL. Same with sieges.

Side note:
If you set up your turrets outside, make sure to build a roof over them and any position your colonists are shooting from. There is a penalty for shooting targets in the dark. In the same vein, drag some power lines and install a few lights around the optimal range of your firing line.

[mumblemumble]

Find inventive ways to kill all raiders that come to get all the guns. Send extra people out to ambush while fleeing,  and if you have a jogger / fast walker,  give him a melee weapon so you can chase a guy or 2 down. The more raiders you kill,  the more guns you end up owning.  This goes double for raiders with snipers, or assault rifles.  Get them,  even if you have to risk a colonist hiding behind enemy lines.

Range controlling by building walls works great,  seiges are a bit more complex,  but ship parts you can build walls up to provide cover / blind zones to retreat behind. This way you aren't completely screwed facing scythers with just survival rifles.  And really,  and flanks are much more important than equipment at the end of the day. A few guys with pistols against 1 guy with an lmg in power armor crossing a swamp with lights on him,  firing at colonists in the shadows actually makes it a winnable fight for the people with pistols.

Also,  timing movement between cover is helpful  ,  even trees,  rocks,  ect can work as cover,  and dramatically lower the risk of being hit,  while running is much more likely. So try running to cover,  wait for a shot,  then move up till in range.  Its not ideal,  but its possible to get around sniper fire due to the low fire rate. Not the best option, but its better than jab with a shiv.