Why do they keep tripping their own traps

[Lightzy]

What is the gameplay imperative for this? How does this contribute?
It's honestly one of the most annoying nuisances of the game for me, especially in low tech games where I can't get a researcher for a long time..

Half the time the idiot arms the trap and then immediately trips it and INSTADIES.
What??
Come on, you can't use traps on ironman like this, it makes no sense.

please fix it

[b0rsuk]

They go into traps if there's a very juicy item (so forbid it until next raid) or when there's no other path. There are also rare accidents, for example hunters might choose a trap square to shoot from. These are bugs scheduled to be fixed in next alphas (A15?).

[Rust]

I deconstructed my hall of traps after it killed two of my tribe who were trying to reset them after a raid.

I'm done with Traps until they stop tripping them themselves. It's maddening.

[Mutineer]

Do not create traps the way colonists do not have any other way but step on them!

[Lightzy]

I try to create looping corridors with traps so that raids have to go through there..

So far I haven't seen this magic where if you leave the colonists an alternate path they always take it.
I posted right after having a guy put a trap in a 2-tile corridor, he could walk around it, but tripped it (maybe it was because his pet was following him around? dunno)

[Lockdown]

Traps are most dangerous immediately after being built, or rearmed. This is because colonists don't recheck their path constantly, they calculate it once then follow through it, for performance reasons. If a trap is activated after a colonist has set a path but before they pass through the previously-safe tile, that trap will trigger on them.

Solution? Make sure your colonists have no tasks that go near trap tiles, by looting every single possible item in the immediate area, and don't build or rearm a ton of traps at once, in a way that your colonists could get stuck between two traps if they build/rearm them in the wrong order. (auto-rearm is a VERY bad idea for this reason) Also, and this goes without saying, but ensure that every single trap you have can be accessed via a safe route, otherwise you'll get injuries on every rearm attempt.

[Wex]

One solution for this problem, would be this:
colonist behave all the time as the trap is armed.

Easy fix.

[bchbum16]

Something that has helped me a lot with traps (though not 100% of the time) is to make sure that the traps are not set for auto-rearm. This way you can rearm the traps when all of the "loot" is hauled away. The only time that I have difficulty is when a bunch of animals go over the traps, and they don't hit all of them... this leaves the dangerous few to be tripped... I usually save and then haul them out one at a time... for those using the iron man mode... just leave them be... it isn't worth it

[keylocke]

-i would have liked the option for portable traps (can be carried and deployed from colonist's inventory)

-as well as electric automated traps. (switch the power on to arm the traps, turn the power off to disarm the traps.) (each trap has a cooldown timer after activation and will reset back to active after cooldown expires, as long as power is turned on)

[milon]

@Lightzy, you want something like this:
https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=17919.msg224480#msg224480

Or, more elaborately, like this:
https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=14507.msg230934#msg230934

Deadfall killzone with safe rearming!  And since it's more expensive path-wise to walk through the traps, they'll avoid them all together.  (Note: Not tested by me in A14 yet.)

[bchbum16]

I have a nice diagonal setup right now with a bunch of deadfall traps... attacks rarely ever get through except for giant ones, but then their numbers are much more manageable.
Milon- I have tried a setup similar to that before and I had a problem with attackers attacking the doors after getting hit by the trap

[milon]

Interesting.  I actually never had that happen.

The other thing you can do to supplement the designs I linked is to add in a couple melee fighters of your own.  Takes some micromanagement, but you can do some hit-and-run strikes against the invaders by making use of the doors.  (Again - worked in A13, but there's been some tweaking done to mitigate that particular exploit.  May not work as well.)

[stigma]

I haven't checked out the traps in A14 much yet, but I agree that they need to be almost foolproof for your own pawns not to activate them, otherwise they quickly end up posing a higher risk to yourself than the enemy. Maybe you could have a small chance of a minor scratch when rearming them (accidents do happen), but pawns definitely should not walk into them - that's way too risky to have around.

-Stigma

[b0rsuk]

Not having traps on auto rearm helps. When you make them auto rearm, they often rearm before they get loot from it.

[skullywag]

It used to be pawns would not check for traps when doing other jobs. So if a pawn was a constructing and a valid cell to stand had a trap in it they would stand there. I raised this last alpha no idea if it was addressed though. All jobs should have danger awareness but this could be expensive computationally. I personally still dont use traps....